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Recipes with sweet red bean paste

3 recipes that use sweet red bean paste, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Anmitsu, takes 30 minutes. It is most often cooked with sugar, agar powder and baking powder.

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Kashiwa mochiOak leaf rice cakes

On 5 May, Children's Day, families in Tokyo and across eastern Japan eat kashiwa mochi: soft, flat rice cakes folded over sweet bean paste and wrapped in an oak leaf. Oak trees keep their old leaves until new ones bud, so the leaf stands for a family line carrying on. The leaf isn't eaten; it adds a faint woody scent and keeps the mochi moist. Mochi is very sticky: cut it into small pieces for young children and older people, and make sure they chew well and eat sitting down. The common mistake is steaming the dough too briefly, which leaves it pasty; steam until it turns slightly translucent, then knead. Chef's tip: dried oak leaves from Japanese grocers need a 10-minute simmer and a rinse before use; if you can't find them, wrap in cherry or bamboo leaves or baking paper.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

AnmitsuAgar jelly with red bean

Anmitsu became a craze in Tokyo's Ginza and Asakusa tea rooms in the 1930s and is still the classic summer order in kanmidokoro, the sweet cafés of old Tokyo. Clear, firm cubes of agar jelly are piled into a bowl with seasonal fruit, a scoop of sweet bean paste and boiled red peas, then drenched in dark, smoky kuromitsu syrup. The common mistake is using gelatin, which melts; agar jelly stays firm and refreshing at room temperature. Chef's tip: make the kuromitsu with Okinawan kokuto black sugar if you can; it gives a deep, almost liquorice-like flavour that muscovado only gets close to.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Dousha bao (red bean buns)

All over China, from Beijing breakfast stalls to Shanghai school bags, dousha bao are the sweet buns people grab in the morning and tuck into a lunch box for later: fluffy white yeasted dough wrapped around smooth red bean paste and steamed until springy. They freeze beautifully, so families make a big batch on Sunday. The mistake is opening the steamer lid as soon as the timer goes; the sudden cold makes the buns wrinkle and collapse. Turn off the heat and wait five minutes before lifting the lid. Chef's tip: chill the bean paste and roll it into balls before wrapping; a firm filling is much easier to seal neatly.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with sweet red bean paste