Homemade Mung Bean Paste (白豆沙 / 绿豆沙）

UPDATED POST ON 6-SEPTEMBER 2016

I have decided to upload a new recipe for chickpea fillings under this post. Scroll Down to section 2 for the recipe

INTRODUCTION

If not as a respect to traditional recipes, I will definitely not lay my hand to prepare these mung bean pastes from scratch.. In fact, friends have “bombarded” me from preparing these bean pastes from green beans and not from the split mung beans usually used for making tau suan or angku kuih…

Some insisted that mung bean paste prepared from de-hulling the raw green beans and those made from split taste the same, but I am not going to argue with all as I personally think that the tastes are different,, What I am sharing in this recipe is a bit laborious but is nothing new to our elders. In fact, the mung bean paste used for the preparation of angku kuih was prepared using this method by our granny.

This illustration really test my patience. I soaked the mung beans, boiled it on the next day and use some thing to lightly mesh the green beans until the husk starts to float up when they were transferred to the cold water.. It sound easy but practically, 1/4 of the husk still attached to the beans and therefore, i have pick the beans tablespoons by tablespoons . It took me about 6 hours to prepare this.. However, I believed that I may have done something not right as I do not believe granny will spend so much time to pick the husk from the green beans.

I am preparing these purely for one traditional Teochew moon cake. This Teochew flaky moon cake usually only used mung bean paste as the filling. However, it was also used in other traditional moon cake as it is consider a cheaper alternative for the expensive lotus paste.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: About 1 kg of mung bean paste

500 grams of raw mung bean or green beans
200 grams of brown sugar
4 tablespoons of maltose
4 tablespoons of glutinous rice flour (optional)
250 grams of lard or peanut oil

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Soaked the raw mung beans in the water overnight. On the next morning, put the soaked mung beans in a pot of water, bring to boil and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Off the heat and let it sit inside the hot water for another 15 minutes. In this process, use a ladle to press the mung beans and take away any shells/skins that floated upwards. Take out as many as possible. Transfer the hot mung beans under some cold water. Use hands to rub away any shell attached. If the shell cannot be de-hulled, you will have to pick the shell and throw away.

Put the de-hulled mung bean to a pressure cooker. Add just enough water to cover the mung bean and pressure cooked for about 30 minutes. Transfer the pressure cooked mung bean to a metal sieve. Use a spoon to press the soft mung bean again the sieve and collect the mashed mung beans.

In a wok, add 1/3 of the cooking oil, put the mung bean paste and 2/3 of the sugar. Stir fry until well mixed. Add the maltose and another 1/3 of sugar followed by the glutinous rice flour. Stir fry until the bean paste dries up and does not stick to the sides of the wok. During this process, you may or may not need to add the remaining 2/3 of the oil If it is too dry, use the reserved oil.

Note:

Theoretically, this should be the correct way of doing. However, practically it is rather difficult. If readers have other better method, please go ahead and do it. For those who think that de-hulled mung beans is the same as split mung beans, you can by pass this step. In China website, apparently, they do sell de-hulled mung bean in whole that looked like what is seen in the picture. Therefore, if you can get hold of de-hulled mung beans in whole, that will be ideal for this assignment.

Some traders may partly used white kidney beans (白眉豆） for the preparation of white “mung” bean paste. Preparation is the same and you can add part of it to mung beans if you think it is too tedious.

This type of mung bean paste can be used as a filling for angku kuih too though most people have used split mung beans for the preparation.

Section 2 – Chickpea fillings

In the market there are tons of creative flavored fillings such as matcha fillings, pandan fillings, chocolate fillings, cream cheese fillings, coffee fillings and etc.. All these fillings need a base filling and some of the packaging label it as ” Chocolate fillings (lotus paste)”. In my humble opinion, I will never believe that expensive lotus paste was used as a base filling..

In previous years’ newspaper report in China, it was rumored that the lotus fillings was made using mashed potatoes plus lotus paste flavoring. Consumer paid a price premium but the cost or the actual ingredients are not lotus paste.

Let’s be realistic, the base fillings for any flavoured filling has to be as affordable as possible and with the flavouring such as matcha powder, cocoa powder, pandan paste etc, you can easily made a filling of your choice that differentiate your mooncake from others. One of the good beans I have tried is chickpea. Chickpea has a subtle aroma and it is ideal as a base filling or a filling on its own.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

250 grams of cooked chickpea
100 grams of castor sugar
2 tablespoons of maltose
2 tablespoons of glutinous rice flour (optional)
100 grams of lard or peanut oil

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Soaked the chickpea overnight, cooked under pressure cooker for about 1 hour or use stove to boil the chickpea until soft.

Drain and use a food processor to blend the cooked chickpea as fine as possible. As it may be impossible to blend it very fine, you may have to add some water and use an immersion blender or normal blender to blend it again.

In the wok, put the oil, add the maltose, sugar and chickpea. Stir fry until you smell the aroma which took about 15 minutes. Add the glutinous rice flour and continue to stir until the paste does not stick to the pan. Cool completely before wrapping.

CONCLUSION

Just like the lotus paste recipe, I found the taste is nice and acceptable but it still differs from what is sold in the store possibly because of mung bean flavouring may have been used. I hoped this post will benefit those readers who are keen to prepare this paste from scratch or who are not able to get hold of store bought mung bean paste.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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