INTRODUCTION
If you like soft fluffy Asian type of pillow loaf, this is not a recipe for you. However, if you like wholemeal bread type of texture, this is a good recipe that you can try. This recipe yields a soft loaf of nutritious but slightly chewy bread.
Red bean is also technically called adzuki or azuki beans. It is a bean that is very commonly used in Asian cuisines.
“The adzuki bean (Vigna angularis; from the Japanese アズキ(小豆) (azuki?), sometimes transliterated as azuki or aduki) is an annual vine widely grown throughout East Asia and the Himalayas for its small (approximately 5 mm) bean. Red bean paste is used in many Chinese dishes, such as tangyuan, zongzi, mooncakes, baozi andred bean ice. It also serves as a filling in Japanese sweets like anpan, dorayaki, imagawayaki, manjū,monaka, anmitsu, taiyaki and daifuku. A more liquid version, using adzuki beans boiled with sugar and a pinch of salt, produces a sweet dish called red bean soup. Adzuki beans are also commonly eaten sprouted, or boiled in a hot, tea-like drink. Some Asian cultures enjoy red bean paste as a filling or topping for various kinds of waffles, pastries, baked buns or biscuits. Adzuki beans are a good source for a variety of minerals, with 1 cup of cooked beans providing 4.6 mg of Iron (~25% RDI), 119.6 mg of magnesium (~30% RDI), 1.223 g of potassium (~25 % AI), 4.0 mg of zinc (~25% RDI) and 278 µg of folic acid (~70% RDI)” (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adzuki_bean)
I have prepared some Hong Kong Red Bean Cake last week, since the cake uses only 10-20 grams of red beans, I have decided to boil the entire packet of red beans using pressure cooker and using part of the red beans to do this bread. Some others were used to make desserts. If you are interested in the red bean cake, you can refer to this post: Hong Kong Red Bean Steamed Rice Cake aka Put chai ko (砵仔糕)
WHAT IS REQUIRED
Servings : One 9”x 4” x 4” Pullman Loaf Tin (or any Pullman loaf tin not smaller than this size)
-
100 grams of red beans
-
3 pandan leaves (optional)
-
20 grams of sugar
-
400 grams of bread flour
-
200 grams of water
-
40 grams of sugar
-
30 grams of butter (softened)
-
6 grams of yeast
-
200 grams of cooked red beans
STEPS OF PREPARATION
-
Wash the red beans, add sugar and pandan leaves. Add water until it is about 2 cm above the red beans. Pressure cook the beans for 30 minutes. Drain and set aside.
Note:
-
In this illustration, I have cooked 400 grams of red beans for other purposes. All my remaining red beans has been used in making desserts and bread. You may want to consider prepare a bit more to fully utilize the pressure cooking.
-
If after 30 minutes, you found that the bean is too hard, you can consider adding a bit more water to continue cooking for another 15 minutes.
-
If you do not have pressure cooker, you can cook over the stove or rice cooker until soft. In this case, to expedite the process, it is advisable that you soak the red bean overnight.
-
Lightly greased a Pullman tin of 9” x 4” x 4”.
-
In a mixing bowl, mixed half of the water and all the other ingredients (except butter) together. Gradually add the other half of the water and use a spoon to stir it until it form a sticky dough. Use the dough hook in the machine to beat the dough at medium to high speed (speed 2 in Kenwood Chef or Kitchen Aid) for about 5 minutes. Add the butter and continue to beat the dough for about 15 minutes or until the dough is smooth and leaves the side of the mixing bowl. (If the dough is too dry, add water teaspoon by teaspoon and if it is too wet, add bread flour tablespoon by tablespoon. The water quantity is for your reference and it is very much depends on the flour’s water absorbing properties and how wet is your mashed potatoes. A pliable dough shall be the final outcome)
-
Transfer the dough out to a lightly floured surface, shape it into a ball, cover with clingy wrap or wet towel, and let it proof until double in size.
-
After first proofing, divide the dough into 3 portions. For each portion, use a rolling pin the roll flat the dough following the width of the baking tin. Roll up again like you are rolling a Swiss roll. Place the roll into the baking tin and let it proof until it reaches about 90% of the tin.
-
Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius.
-
Once the proofing almost reaches the cover, close the pull man lid and bake in the pre-heated oven of 190 for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of loaf comes out clean. Cool completely before slice for serving.
CONCLUSION
Though chewy, this bread is soft. The chewiness stems from fibrous red bean that contains lots of mineral. Hope some readers will give it a try and see if this suits your taste bud.
Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.
-
For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 13 March 2015) here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts. Also follow me at INSTAGRAM or TSU, a new social network for some more personal sharing other than recipes.
-
You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP and FOOD PARADISE 美食天堂 to see more recipes. I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.
-
If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me where there are more than 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.