This red bean paste, azukian in Japanese, is one of the most common ingredients in traditional Japanese sweets (Wagashi, the Japanese call the European sweets yougashi), but I also like to snack on it. An, or sometimes called Anko, stands for the paste - it is sometimes made from white, green beans or chestnuts; Azuki is the name of the red beans, which (not to be confused with the kidney beans, although the color is very similar) is approx. 5 mm long and 3 mm thick, so relatively small (Azuki is written in two characters, the small and Called bean). Unfortunately, I haven`t found the beans in all Asian stores so far, I recommend anyone looking for them to go to a store that has a particularly well-stocked Japanese department. There you can also buy the paste in a can (or processed in a candy) to try whether you like it at all if you don`t know it. Sweet beans are just not to everyone`s taste.
So, enough of the foreword, I just hope that at least the people who got lost in this recipe are interested in something like this 🙂 So here is the recipe:
Wash the beans quickly, soak them in water overnight for shorter cooking times. Bring to the boil in a saucepan with plenty of water, discard the water and bring the beans to the boil again with plenty of water. Every now and then, pour in more water and more often skim off the foam. Simmer for about an hour to an hour and a half, until the beans are cooked (try a bean, if it is still firm to the bite, continue cooking).
Here you can also press the beans through a fine sieve and discard the skin in order to get a smoother paste (Japanese differentiate between Tsubuan, in which you can still see whole beans, and Koshian, which is smooth).
Then discard enough water that the beans are just below the surface of the water. Add sugar and salt, cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Then let the paste evaporate over high heat, stirring slowly with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat when you can see the bottom of the pot while stirring.
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