A few restaurant chains in the UK serve endemame soy beans in their pods with a delicious coating and I've been desperately craving them and determined to replicate the dish at home - I think I've managed it!
I'm trying to find healthier snacks for when those nibble moments strike and since these beans are quick and easy to prepare I'm hoping they will replace the chocolate coated snacks I normally munch on.
You can buy endemame soy beans in their pods frozen from many larger supermarkets. I bought mine in a large asian supermarket. The advantage of buying them frozen is that you can just prepare a handful for snack purposes or a larger dish for family meals. Endemame are simply young soy beans and they are soft and tasty at this stage. Older hard beans are used to make soy milk and other products.
Without further ado, here's my recipe for sweet and spicy endemame beans.
Ingredients
500g endemame soy beans in pods.
glaze
2 tbsps soy sauce
2 tbsp honey
1tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 tsp dried chilli flakes (increase or decrease to taste and depending on your personal heat tolerance!)
1/2 tsp rock salt
for panfrying
1 tsp oil
Method
Steam or boil endemame pods for 8-10 minutes. Meanwhile combine glaze ingredients in a jug. When beans are cooked, heat oil in a pan, add beans and glaze and cook, stir frying beans for 2-3 mins then serve as part of a meal or as snack or canapé. I steamed up a load of dim sum to go with them and we had a lunchtime feast.
These bad boys are most definitely finger food. To eat, pick up a pod, and put it in your mouth while popping out the beans to get the flavour. DON'T EAT THE POD. Discard bean-less pods in another bowl