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Caution: Experimentation In Progress
May. 26th, 2011 06:26 pmSo after staring desperately for several minutes at a bewildering array of dried beans at the Safeway last night and failing to find navy beans, I picked up a package of white limas. I figure they're going to be boiled and mashed to a paste as a delivery system for sweetener, it oughta work, right? Threw them in a pot with water to soak overnight.
Came home, walked into the kitchen and was Not Happy with the odor of Soaked White Lima Bean emanating from the pot. On the other hand, a great many of the beans had shed their skins and I figured it would be less crap gunking up my strainer, so I went through the entire pot and skinned as many as gave up easily, rinsed everything and put it all back in the pot. After the first boil-over, which featured more beany stinking foam, I dumped it all in the colander again, re-rinsed, cleaned inside and outside of pot, put the beans back in, put more water in, brought it back to a boil then turned it down to simmer while I watched the news.
When I went back, the smell was gone and the test bean mashed easily with a fork. Drained everything into the colander and began pushing beans through the strainer into two bowls. Mashed potatoes. It looks and feels like mashed potatoes and tastes pretty bland. Just added four tablespoons of ladycelia's rose petal syrup to the contents of one bowl. Smells great but needs sweetening, so I've got a crystallized bottle of honey warming in a saucepan while I write this. Rose petal and honey for one bowl and I think honey (and maybe some with sesame seeds?) for the other. Then I'll do kinako with the red bean filled mochi, I guess.
I even bought food coloring for the first time in my entire life.
Time to go check on that honey....
EDIT: Oh. My. That's gooooood. That's better than I would have believed, especially after the Stinky Bean phase. (Maybe![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mochimonkey is right about me!) Addition of liquefied warm honey made the bean mixture even creamier. I think I achieved a sweet that's not obnoxiously so. Two plastic containers of shiro-an (white)are now keeping the container of koshi-an (red) company in the fridge. I'll do the mochi portion of the festivities in the morning before I leave for the event. Hopefully it'll stay a little fresher that way.
Came home, walked into the kitchen and was Not Happy with the odor of Soaked White Lima Bean emanating from the pot. On the other hand, a great many of the beans had shed their skins and I figured it would be less crap gunking up my strainer, so I went through the entire pot and skinned as many as gave up easily, rinsed everything and put it all back in the pot. After the first boil-over, which featured more beany stinking foam, I dumped it all in the colander again, re-rinsed, cleaned inside and outside of pot, put the beans back in, put more water in, brought it back to a boil then turned it down to simmer while I watched the news.
When I went back, the smell was gone and the test bean mashed easily with a fork. Drained everything into the colander and began pushing beans through the strainer into two bowls. Mashed potatoes. It looks and feels like mashed potatoes and tastes pretty bland. Just added four tablespoons of ladycelia's rose petal syrup to the contents of one bowl. Smells great but needs sweetening, so I've got a crystallized bottle of honey warming in a saucepan while I write this. Rose petal and honey for one bowl and I think honey (and maybe some with sesame seeds?) for the other. Then I'll do kinako with the red bean filled mochi, I guess.
I even bought food coloring for the first time in my entire life.
Time to go check on that honey....
EDIT: Oh. My. That's gooooood. That's better than I would have believed, especially after the Stinky Bean phase. (Maybe
mochimonkey is right about me!) Addition of liquefied warm honey made the bean mixture even creamier. I think I achieved a sweet that's not obnoxiously so. Two plastic containers of shiro-an (white)are now keeping the container of koshi-an (red) company in the fridge. I'll do the mochi portion of the festivities in the morning before I leave for the event. Hopefully it'll stay a little fresher that way.
