Recipe: Perfect Chunky Adzuki Bean Paste and Zenzai Red Bean Soup

Chunky Adzuki Bean Paste and Zenzai Red Bean Soup. Zenzai (ぜんざい) is a traditional Japanese dessert soup made with azuki beans. This sweet red bean soup is served hot with mochi (rice cake) or shiratama dango (glutinous rice flour dumplings) inside the soup. Slightly sweet, with a gentle fragrance from the red beans, the dessert soup has the instant magic of warming up one's soul.

Adjust the amount of water, sugar and salt to your taste. You can freeze the adzuki bean paste. Use for making adzuki bean bread or other confectioneries. You can cook Chunky Adzuki Bean Paste and Zenzai Red Bean Soup using 4 ingredients and 13 steps. Here is how you cook it.

Ingredients of Chunky Adzuki Bean Paste and Zenzai Red Bean Soup

1. Prepare of Dried adzuki beans.
2. Prepare of Sugar.
3. You need of Salt.
4. It's of refer to how to make Water.

Chunky Adzuki Bean Paste and Zenzai Red Bean Soup Dried. Zenzai is basically soup made from Anko. Anko (sweet red bean paste) is the crucial ingredient for traditional Japanese confectioneries. It is a paste made with Azuki (red beans) and sugar.

Chunky Adzuki Bean Paste and Zenzai Red Bean Soup step by step

1. Rinse the dried adzuki beans and put with 700 ml of water in a sauce pan. Discard any beans floating on the surface. Put on high heat and bring to a boil..
2. After bringing to a boil, cover with a lid and reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes..
3. Drain the beans through a colander and rinse in running water. Handle gently to not damage the beans..
4. Return the beans to the pan and add 700 ml of water. Bring to a boil..
5. After bringing to a boil, cover with a lid and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 20 minutes..
6. Drain the beans through a colander and discard the cooking liquid. Repeat Steps 4 to 6 again..
7. Return the beans to the pan and add 600 ml of water. Put on high heat and bring to a boil..
8. After bringing to a boil, reduce the heat to low. Skim off any scum on the surface..
9. Add 3 tablespoons of cold water several times to lower the temperature and keep on cooking until the beans are tender..
10. Divide the sugar into 4 portions and add one after another. Stir well every time you add the portioned sugar. Add salt and mix well..
11. At this point you've finished making the zenzai red bean soup. I halved the portion and made one into zenzai and another into anko..
12. For the anko, simmer the adzuki beans over low to medium heat while stirring with a heatproof plastic spatula so that the bottom doesn't burn..
13. It's done when the adzuki beans start to look heavy and can be brought together into a thick paste..

Anko is used in a lot of different ways in many types of dessert in Japan. In the western Japan, in places such as Osaka and Kyoto, oshiruko soup is made from smooth red bean paste while zenzai soup is made from chunky red beans. Both have a soup and are always served hot. Red bean soup is both a popular snack and a sweet dessert soup. Azuki beans are a "yang" or warming food.