Ingredients
|
2 (200g) packages of dried kuromame
This works out to a little more than 2 cups 4 cups of water Prep Sauce 4 cups of water in a small sauce pan Heaping ¼t baking soda 1 ⅔ cup sugar (white) ⅓ cup Low-sodium Kikkoman shoyu (green label) 2t Hawaiian or Kosher salt |
Finishing Sauce
About 3 cups of the crock pot sauce Thickener 2 heaping spoonfuls of cornstarch 2-3 ladles of the crock pot sauce Kuri (chestnuts), either packaged or fresh (optional) |
What To Do
Rinse the dried kuromame. Dump it into the crock pot with 4 cups of water.
Put all ingredients for the prep sauce into a sauce pan. Heat until everything is dissolved and bring to almost boiling. Do not let it go to a full boil or you might burn the shoyu and make it bitter.
Add sauce to the crock pot, give it a stir and then cook for 8 hours on low. Go shopping, clean your house, prep your other New Year's stuff.
Turn off after 8 hours. There will be a lot of liquid but no 'scum' on the top. This is a bonus. Use a slotted spoon to take out the beans and put them into a glass bowl.
Put the 3 cups of the hot crock pot sauce into a small pot. In a separate small mixing bowl, add the cornstarch and ladles of crock pot sauce (to make a slurry). Bring crock pot liquid to a full rolling boil and then add the cornstarch liquid to thicken it up. Add slowly so that the sauce is just thickened to about the consistency of melted ice cream.
Pour thickened sauce over the beans, making sure that the liquid just covers all the beans. Let sit for a bit. Right before serving, toss in some kuri to your liking and then serve.
If you make this a day ahead, cover with Saran Wrap, cool and then refrigerate. Before eating, warm thoroughly and serve. Do not boil.
Put all ingredients for the prep sauce into a sauce pan. Heat until everything is dissolved and bring to almost boiling. Do not let it go to a full boil or you might burn the shoyu and make it bitter.
Add sauce to the crock pot, give it a stir and then cook for 8 hours on low. Go shopping, clean your house, prep your other New Year's stuff.
Turn off after 8 hours. There will be a lot of liquid but no 'scum' on the top. This is a bonus. Use a slotted spoon to take out the beans and put them into a glass bowl.
Put the 3 cups of the hot crock pot sauce into a small pot. In a separate small mixing bowl, add the cornstarch and ladles of crock pot sauce (to make a slurry). Bring crock pot liquid to a full rolling boil and then add the cornstarch liquid to thicken it up. Add slowly so that the sauce is just thickened to about the consistency of melted ice cream.
Pour thickened sauce over the beans, making sure that the liquid just covers all the beans. Let sit for a bit. Right before serving, toss in some kuri to your liking and then serve.
If you make this a day ahead, cover with Saran Wrap, cool and then refrigerate. Before eating, warm thoroughly and serve. Do not boil.
Notes and Talking Story
- Using a crock pot gives an uniform and ideal al-dente bite to the kuromame. The bean flavor itself will be very, very light, and this is where the finishing sauce comes in.
- Ideally, refrigerate over night, but this is not a requirement.
- You are supposed to eat one bean for each year of your life. So if you are lucky and healthy, you could end up eating a lot of kuromame.
- My mother and aunty did not make this from scratch, writing it off as "too much humbug and the canned one tastes just as good." I then asked Aunty Google, and settled on a deceptively simple crock pot recipe from the old Honolulu Star Bulletin, by Betty Shimabukuro, ca 2013.
- The crock pot instead exponentially reduces the humbug quotient vs. of standing over a boiling pot of beans for hours on end.