Slow cooked Red bean soup with Glutinous rice balls

Red bean soup is a popular dessert in many Asian countries. It is also common to have it with glutinous rice balls during big Chinese festivities and get together as it symbolises unity. 

Let's be honest though. I've never really liked Asian desserts. Nor have I ever gone out of my way to order (let alone make) this ever. 

Strangely, for the first time in both my pregnancies, I experienced a craving. Perhaps it was the rainy weather, or the fact I read about it on the Internet being a great postpartum food during confinement (high in Iron)... Either way, I wanted some right then. 

Luckily we live quite close to Meetfresh (a place which sells various Asian desserts - I've never had the redbean there as I rarely visit this place. The only thing I've tried and ordered is the mango ice - yum). So off hubby goes in the rain to bring back a bowl of redbean soup. 

Unfortunately, my craving was not satisfied and I was most disappointed in what seemed to be a bowl of herbal jelly syrup, a few pieces of taro and I could count the amount of red beans in the bowl on my fingers. What a rip off. 

I wasn't happy - even if baby Isaac was... So I went to my pantry, found a pack of adzuki red beans, measured out a cup and washed them, leaving them to soak overnight. 

The next morning, the weather hasn't improved and the craving was still there. So I drained the beans, added it to my Slow cooker along with about 1.25-1.5L water and cooked it on Auto. 

After brekky, hubby and I took Isaac to the pools for a swim. When we returned, I started getting cracking on the red beans while my wonderful husband tended to the babies needs. 

Below is pretty much the steps/recipes for my Red Bean Soup & Glutinous Rice Balls:

Ingredients

Red Bean soup:

1 cup dried Adzuki/Red beans

1.25-1.5L water

Sugar to taste (I used a few knobs of rock sugar)

Glutinous Rice Balls:

Glutinous rice flour

Water 

Ratio I used was approximately 2:1 (1/2 cup glutinous rice flour and half that amount of water)

Optional: food colouring/flavouring or desired filling

Method (using Slow cooker)

1. Wash and soak the beans overnight. 

2. Drain the beans and add the beans to the slow cooker along with the water. Cook on Auto for 4-5hrs. The sugar I add towards the end and tasting to suit my palate. I also give it time for the sugar to break down and melt as the rock sugar is pretty chunky...

Voila. That simple! You can serve it straight up! Or if you can be bothered, add another quick step by rolling in some glutinous rice balls for some chew:

3. Boil some water in a pot on the stove. 4. In a separate bowl, measure out desired amount of glutinous rice flour (as it was just my hubby, sister and me, I only used about 1/2 a cup) and then mix it with half the amount in water. If it is too wet, add more flour, if its too dry, add more water. The Mixture should not crumb apart or stick to your hands, but form a nice dough.

5. Optional: you can separate the mixture and add colouring to the dough. Popular choices are usually a red colouring or pandan essence. You can also choose to add fillings to the balls (eg. Peanut paste, sesame paste or red bean paste) which I was also planning to do - but at this point, the baby woke from his nap and was in the kitchen, opening the drawers, you get the picture. Suffice to say, we had plain, non-coloured (but deliciously chewy) glutinous rice balls. 

6. Roll into a log and cut them into even sizes (or if you're lazy like me, rip them with your fingers) and roll them into desired size smooth balls between your palms. Drop them into the boiling water. Once the balls float, they are ready. Scoop them up and serve with your red bean soup (or a nice sweet ginger syrup). Eat immediately for best results!

Glutinous Rice Balls are freezable too - just place the balls on a plate lightly dusted with glutinous rice flour after you've rolled them into shape. Then freeze them on the plate before transferring into a ziplock bag and throwing in the freezer again. This ensures they don't stick to each other. When you need to use it, just dump it straight into whatever 'soup' to cook. I never bother with this though since they're so easy and quick to make anyway.