Red Bean Soup (紅豆湯 (hóng dòu tāng))

Overview

Hong dou tang, red bean soup, is a sweet Chinese dessert soup of azuki beans and one of the best-known tong sui, the sweet soups of southern China. The small red beans are soaked and simmered with a piece of sun-dried tangerine peel until they are soft and some have burst, thickening the soup naturally. In Cantonese restaurants, lotus seeds go in too, and the soup is sweetened at the end with rock sugar or slab sugar. Cooked longer until the beans break down completely, it becomes hong dou sha, a smooth red bean soup. Popular additions include sago, tapioca pearls, glutinous rice balls or a little coconut milk.

History

Red bean soup is eaten in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and across the Chinese diaspora. In Cantonese cuisine, a red bean soup with rock sugar, tangerine peel and lotus seeds is a classic sweet course at the end of a restaurant or banquet meal. It is served hot in winter and cold in summer, and in Taiwan it is paired with mung bean soup: mung bean soup for the summer, red bean soup for the winter. Leftover soup is often frozen into ice pops.

Main ingredients

Azuki beans, rock sugar, dried tangerine peel, lotus seeds. The soup is built on sweet azuki bean dessert soup and is usually served hot. Diet: vegan; usually gluten-free.

Explore: Bean soups · More soups from China

Recipe

4Serves

2h 10m10 prep · 120 cook

~230kcal / serving

EasyDifficulty

Method

1. 1

   Put the beans, tangerine peel and lotus seeds in a pot with the water and bring to the boil.

2. 2
   2 h

   Simmer, partly covered, for 1½ to 2 hours, until the beans are very soft and some have burst.

3. 3

   Stir in the rock sugar until it dissolves.

4. 4

   For a smoother hong dou sha, cook longer and mash some of the beans.

5. 5

   Serve hot, or chill and serve cold.

6. ✓

   Serve. About 2h 10m from start to bowl.

In short: Red Bean Soup is a bean, pea or lentil soup from China, in East Asia, made mainly with azuki beans, rock sugar and dried tangerine peel. It is vegan and is served hot or cold.

Sources

• Hong dou tang (Wikipedia)
• Tong sui (Wikipedia)
• Cantonese cuisine (Wikipedia)

Description, history and recipe written by SoupWiki and checked against the sources above. Calories and times are rough estimates.