Anko (for An Pan)

(This post is a companion post to An Pan.)

The first step to making an pan is getting anko.  If you live near an Oriental mart, you may be able to purchase canned anko, but if you do not, or if you would rather make it yourself, this post is for you.

Anko is a sweet bean paste used in several Japanese desserts.  It's not as sweet as most Western tastes may expect, so the first time the uninitiated taste it, it may take some adjustment in thinking.  The first time my 10-yr-old had anko, it was in a store-bought mochi treat, and she hated it.  But when I made anko buns at home, she ended up asking for seconds and thirds.

"Wow, Mom," she said, considering her anko bun, "Homemade anko sure tastes a lot better."

To be honest, most things taste better homemade, anyway.  The advantage to making your own anko is, of course, you can control the amount of sweetness in it.  If you just can't stand it as the recipe is, you can alter the amount of sugar or salt to taste.  (My teenage helper whose hands you see in these pictures frequently just omits the salt entirely.)

The anko recipe we use is one we found in a book my daughter received for Christmas, called The Manga Cookbook (wonder who bought that for her . . . /whistles idly . . .)

The Manga Cookbook

It's actually very cute, playing on her love of all things anime and manga and her love of Japanese food.  (For her birthday, I got her a "Japan Bento Lover's Club" t-shirt from Thinkgeek.com . . .)

Isn't it adorable!?

You'll need azuki beans, sugar, and salt.  Azuki beans are small, red beans frequently prepared in Japanese sweet dishes.  (Some people spell them "adzuki", which makes absolutely no sense in Japanese pronunciation.)

Ingredients:
2 cups azuki beans
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons salt (we actually use a little less)

Short version:  cook the beans as you would any other dried bean, until they are soft enough to squish between your fingers.  Longer version:  put the beans in a pot after rinsing them an d cover them with a lot of water.  (You'll want much more than just covering them.)  Bring the water to boil.  Remove the pot from heat, cover with a lid, and let it sit overnight or so.  (Technically, you only need to have them sit a couple of hours if you do this, but I prefer to just let them sit overnight.)  After soaking, drain the water out of the pot and replace it with clean water, again, quite a bit over the beans.  Bring the beans to a boil and boil them until they are soft enough to squish between your fingers.  (This is not, I might add, how the book tells someone to cook the beans.  But let's face it--soaking the beans, then just cooking them in a pot with no water for an hour will result in a horrible mess, not to mention uncooked beans.  My daughter tried.  We decided to go with the tried-and-true method of cooking beans.)  After the beans are cooked, drain the beans.

With a wooden spatula, potato masher, or whatever tool you find handy to the job (in our case, a tortilla roller made from a piece of dowel), mash the beans to whatever consistency you desire.  Those who want their anko really smooth may put it through a strainer or sieve, but we prefer to keep the natural fiber of the beans, so ours is more lumpy.  That's ok . . . there are as many varieties of anko as there are makers.

Add half of the sugar and stir over low heat.

Interestingly enough, when the sugar is added, the beans go from being just a bunch of mashed beans to being something more like a quite liquid-y soup.  (Wonder what chemical reaction is happening here . . .)

Cook and stir until it starts to thicken a little, then add the rest of the sugar and the salt.  Continue to cook and stir (You really don't want burned beans and sugar!) until the mixture reaches the consistency of sticky mashed potatoes, rather on the soft side.

The anko will thicken as it cools and should be stored in the refrigerator.  BUT, if you are about to make anko buns, don't refrigerate it just yet.  (Ever tried to rise a bun filled with a refrigerated filling?  I have . . . Not a good idea.)

Where else can anko be used?  In pita, of course . . . or just spread on bread . . . or with vanilla ice cream (yep, believe it or not) . . . or with rice . . . or . . . anywhere else your imagination can take it.