Chilled red bean dessert soup

In the mood to consider something different?  It's time for another Asian dessert, this one using red azuki beans.

An Asian dessert soup of red beans and tapioca pearls, served cold

Dessert soups are very common in Chinese culture.  I've talked about a few in the past - from a sweet potato one, to taro-tapioca, glutinous rice balls, and my husband's favorite, mango sago.  This red bean dessert soup is a very common one, often served at the end of a meal in a Chinese restaurant or as a dessert in a Chinese banquet (for say, a wedding).  After seeing a recipe for it on a blog recently, I realized I'd never made it at home so why not give it a try!

There are just a few ingredients in this red bean dessert soup.  The main one is the red azuki beans.  Red beans are very popular in Chinese and Japanese food - whether as a sweet paste stuffed in buns or pancakes, or as a filling in cake, or in the form of popsicles or ice cream, to name a few uses.   

Red azuki beans used for this dessert soup

One of my favorite food memories growing up, in my early days in Hong Kong, was of eating little red bean pudding cakes that were served on a stick.  I really love all things red bean but I don't get to enjoy them nearly as much as I wish so I'm making up for things a bit today by whipping up a batch of this red bean dessert soup.

Besides the beans, all you need is water, sugar to sweeten, and, if you feel like it, a few tablespoons of tapioca pearls to thicken things up a little further and give it a fun extra texture.  This soup is often flavored with tangerine peel (or you could use a little orange zest, as I've seen suggested).  I opted to omit this because in all cases where I've had red bean dessert soup flavored with tangerine peel, the flavor has always been too strong for me.  I never knew what it was for the longest time but I knew I didn't like it all that much.

As for the cooking process, the beans should be soaked for a few hours and there will be about 1 1/2 - 2 hours of cooking time on the stove.  I know stovetop cooking isn't the most appealing thing in the summer but I tried to make up for it by cooking this and chilling the soup to serve cold.  While this is typically served hot/warm, you can usually enjoy most Chinese dessert soups either hot or cold.  I am extreme - I like things either really hot or really cold!  The benefit, to me, of chilling the soup is it thickens up rather substantially (it's almost pudding like) and personally, I like a thick hearty texture.  If that's not your preference and you prefer a more fluid "soup", serving it at room temperature would be a better option.

Chilled Spanish flan

I had a few inspirations for making flan.  Way back in the day, my brother used to work in a Spanish-Asian-American restaurant.  We're talking roughly two decades ago, before "fusion" was hip and then commonplace. It was a restaurant owned by relatives of ours actually, and my brother worked there part-time as a waiter while going to school.  I imagine it was hard work, with late hours and weekend duty, but I think one of the perks of working there had to be the food.  I remember he loved their flan.  When I was making this, I was thinking about that...

Essentially a cold egg custard with a soft caramel top that provides a ready sauce

For my own part, I'm less familiar with flan than I am with another similar dessert, crème brulee. Unless you're in a Spanish restaurant, flan isn't something you see often on menus.  So I haven't thought much about it but when I did give it some thought recently, I realized that flan is simply an egg custard (a cold one) sitting below a layer of soft caramel.

And that brings me to a second motivation I had for trying flan at home.  I love egg custards - it's my idea of sweet comfort food - so why not try a cold version for a change! Without exaggeration, I make this warm/room-temperature egg custard all the time.  When I have whole milk in the fridge that I want to use up - and that happens quite often - I whip two of them up to enjoy with my husband in the evening.  It's smooth creaminess always feels both nurturing and nourishing and I love the flavors of the eggs and milk together with the hint of vanilla.  I have to say - if there's one ingredient I really appreciate, it's eggs.  They are quite possibly the most crucial thing I use when it comes to cooking and baking, and I always marvel at what the egg can do and help you create.  

Lastly, I made flan because I was thinking about cold desserts in these endless days of heat and humidity.  I was also looking for something I can prepare in advance.  With the busy summer schedule, it's nice to be to cook ahead when you have a free moment so that you can simply eat when the time comes.  Flan fit the bill nicely for our dessert rotation.

Like with most things, there are several versions of flan.  This one is on the lighter end of the spectrum - the custard base being essentially the same as the egg custard I make often.  That is, it's made with the foundations of whole milk, eggs and egg yolks. Some richer versions call for cream, condensed milk, or evaporated milk. 

The main deterrent against making flan must be the caramel coating.  I admit it can be tricky (the major issue being it hardens very quickly, making it difficult to distribute evenly in your ramekins) but don't stress about it!  Just expect it and do the best you can, like I did.  Because, quite frankly, it really doesn't matter all that much.  Once the custards go into their water bath and cook, that caramel redistributes.  When you turn it out, the caramel will, magically, be evenly coated and the caramel sauce will flow and pool before your eyes.

Being able to prepare these in advance is a huge plus.  I made these one rainy Saturday morning and stowed it away in my refrigerator.  It can stay there for up to 3 days.  I love opening up my refrigerator and seeing plenty of ready-to-eat foods.