Product Overview
Seed Packet = 15 g
These are small, reddish-brown beans, rounded in shape with a point at one end. They have a strong, nutty, sweet flavour, and are much used in the macrobiotic diet, because as Eunice Farmilaí«íåt says in Macrobiotic Cooking they are "the most yang of Beans". They originate from China.
In the Orient, adzuki beans are usually cooked to a red soft consistency and served with such ingredients as coconut milk. They are also cooked with rice, their bright colour tinting the rice an attractive pink, as in the Japanese, Red-cooked Festival Rice. In the East it's also common to find, adzuki beans sweetened with sugar and made into cakes and sweetmeats.
| Basic Cooking | Soak 1/2 cup of beans overnight in ample water. Drain and simmer in 2 cups of water for 40 minutes to an hour. Alternatively, pressure cook the soaked beans in 2 cups of water for 5-9 minutes at high pressure. If you don't have time to soak the beans, pressure cook for 15-20 minutes. |
| History: | The Adzuki Bean (Vigna angularis) has been grown in the Far East for centuries. Like the soybean, it most probably originated in China, and was introduced to Japan around 1000 AD. Today in Japan, Adzuki beans one of the largest crops, with annual consumption of over 120,000 Metric Tons. The Adzuki Bean is not found in the wild. While vining beans are grown across South Asia (China, India, Taiwan and Thailand), bush or erect plant types are grown in both Northern Japan and the upper Midwest.
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| Uses: | The Adzuki Bean, like other edible beans, is used directly as a food. In the Far East, where it is often known as the "Mercedes" of beans, it is principally used, after fermentation, as a confectionery product. In North America and Europe it is valued for its relatively low cooking time (approx. 1 hour) as well as low fat and high protein and natural sugar nutritional profile. |
