The Adzuki Bean
adzuki bean; azuki bean [ah-ZOO-kee; AH-zoo-kee] A small, dried, russet-colored bean with a sweet flavor. Adzuki beans can be purchased whole or powdered at Asian markets. They are particularly popular in Japanese cooking where they're used in confections such as the popular YOKAN, made with adzuki-bean paste and AGAR. See also BEANS.
from THE FOOD LOVER'S COMPANION, 2nd edition, by Sharon Tyler Herbst, Barron's Educational Services, Inc.
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 Farmilañt says in Macrobiotic Cooking they are "the most yang of Beans". They probably originate from China, and are imported from China and Thailand where they are harvested in November and December. 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.
From The Bean Book by Rose Elliot, Fontana/Collins. ISBN 0 00 635536 6
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Botanical Name: | Paseolus angularis |
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Other Names: | adsuki, aduki, asuki, azuki, chi dou (Mandarin), feijao, field pea, hong xiao dou (Mandarin), red oriental, Tiensin red |
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Description: | Dry adzuki beans are small dark red, oval beans approximately 5 mm in diameter. They have a distinctive white ridge along one side. Adzuki beans are popular across Asia, particularly in Japan, and are used to make red sweet bean paste. |
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Nutritional Information: | Click here for nutritional information |
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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. |
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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 accross South Asia (China, India, Taiwan and Thailand), bush or erect plant types are grown in both Northern Japan and the upper Midwest. Purity Foods was instrumental in the introduction of the bean to growers in Michigan in 1979 and has been active in development of varities with both the charastics demanded by consumers and improvment in yield for the growers. |
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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 pricipaly used, after fermentation, as a confectionery product. In North America and Europe it is valued for its relativly low cooking time (approx. 1 hour) as well as low fat and high protein and natural sugar nutirtional profile. |
The number one source for your Adzuki Beans : Purity Foods