Red Bean Creame (红豆沙)

Last week, I attended a gathering and the theme was soup.  Prior to that, I was cracking my head on what to bring but eventually, I still settle for a sweet soup as I reckon many will bring savoury.

I love red bean soup (红豆糖水）and red bean creame (红豆沙), I always look forward to wedding banquet but usually I am greatly disappointed as it is usually tooth aching sweet.

This time round, I decided to challenge myself in making something much more difficult.  Thus I opted for red bean creame.

First you need to cook the beans till very soft and the most daunting part is to sieve it to remove the husk and only take in the "沙".

That process definitely needed arm power to do it.  I was happy that I bought a ricer last year and get to use it now.  But the best quality achieved is still using a sieve and push the mashed bean through it.

I hope Red Bean Creme can consider a soup. LOLz.

What you need

600g red bean (soak overnight)
12 cups of water (3 cups, 3 cups, 5-6 cups)
250g lotus seed (soak and remove stem)
Rock sugar to taste
Pandan Leaves
1 small pcs of Dried Orange Peel, soak for 1 hour or soften
Coconut cream for garnish

Glutinous Rice flour mixture (7 tbsp glutinous rice flour with 10 tbsp of water)

Method

Boil red beans with water to a brisk boil.  Drain off the water.  Repeat another time.

Scrape off the white pits of the orange peel.

Put water into beans again and boil till it becomes soft with the orange peel.  

Put it in a blender and blend till a very fine paste. Sieve through a fine sieve. You need to press them through the sieve. Put the sieved red bean back into the water.  Discard husk.

Steam lotus seed till semi-soft.

Add lotus seed, pandan leaves, and rock sugar to the red bean soup.

Simmer till the sugar dissolved.

Thicken with glutinous rice flour mixture.  Bring to a boil, stirring constantly till red bean creme thickens.


Note: Depending on how creamy you want them to be, dilute them with water accordingly.