VIETNAMESE BEAN DESSERT

I am lucky to have travelled extensively and I have been to Vietnam twice.  I enjoyed Vietnamese food served there and I still do.  Infact their cooking is very easy to adapt and their use of multiple fresh herbs really made me  happy. Well I like herbs a lot in my cooking too.

There are just so many savoury  dishes that I enjoyed but I would like to share a simple dessert which is easy and very tasty just like  kueh (generic term for Malaysian dessert)

This dessert cake is unlike western buttery cake. Instead it is more of a pudding than a cake. It is  so easy to make and it is delicious if you like beans. And when  it is made of beans, it becomes very nutritious – how often can we find protein rich desserts!  Surprisingly this dessert is not found in most Vietnamese restaurants.

This is one of the desserts that I taught in my community centre recently  and my participants enjoyed it so much.

INGREDIENTS

250 gm yellow beans

150 gm sugar

200 ml coconut milk

2 eggs

4 tbsp condensed milk

100 gm plain flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

METHOD

Wash and soak the beans for 30 minutes.

Steam the beans or boil the beans till soft.  Cool.

Preheat oven to 170C.

Put  all the ingredients in a blender and grind  to a smooth batter.

Pour into a prepared tin and bake for 1 hour.

Cut into pieces and serve it  warm or cold.

NOTES:

If you prefer not to use condensed milk, you can substitute with fresh milk instead or increase the coconut milk portion.

This doesn’t freeze so make 1 batch and finish it within 3 days or so.

You can cut in whatever shapes that you prefer  – I cut it into wedges, you may cut into small rectangles too.

The beans are also known as yellow beans, yellow dhall or mung beans.  Nowsadays it is available easily at Asian stores. A littles goes a long way and very nutritious.  I  use this beans to make vegetable sambar or gravy, and fritters or just use it in salads to give the protein element.

The beans can be boiled as well and do strain any water if there is.

The sugar is just right here but if there is a concern to reduce sugar intake,  substitutes can be used. Or simply reduce 50 gms in this recipe.