Sweet bean paste

Sweet bean paste
Hanyu Pinyin		dòu shā
Jyutping	dau6 saa1
Literal meaning	bean sand
Transcriptions Hanyu Pinyin dòu shā Yue: Cantonese Jyutping dau6 saa1

Sweet bean paste is a food ingredient used throughout

, primarily as a filling for sweet desserts and pastries.

Production

The beans are usually boiled without sugar, mashed, and diluted into a slurry. The slurry is then strained through a sieve to remove the husks. The resulting liquid is then filtered and squeezed dry using cheesecloth, and then finally sweetened. Oil in the form of either vegetable oil or lard is usually added to the relatively dry paste to improve its texture and mouthfeel.^{[citation needed]}

Oiled sweet bean paste is mainly found as fillings for Chinese pastries, while un-oiled sweet bean pastes can be used to make tong sui. Japanese pastries use primarily un-oiled sweet bean pastes.^{[citation needed]}

Types

There are several types of sweet bean paste:

• Oil bean paste (油豆沙) – made from
  Sweet Osmanthus
  flavor
• Mung bean paste (綠豆沙) – made from mung beans and dull reddish purple in colour
• azuki beans
  and dark red in colour
• White bean paste (白豆沙) – made from
  navy beans and greyish off-white in colour^photo
• Black bean potato paste (黑豆沙) – made from black soybean powder (黑豆面) and potatoes; used in Beijing cuisine and other cuisines of northern China^photo

Others

There are a number of other pastes used in Chinese cuisine, primarily as fillings for dessert items. Although not made from beans, they share similar usage and are equally popular. They are very similar in flavor and texture to sweet bean paste. These include:

• Lotus seed paste
• Black sesame paste

Gallery

• 
  Chinese pancake using dou sha ingredient
• 
  Filling

  mung bean paste
• 
  Sandwich in Nagoya
• 
  Making bean paste flower

See also

• Bean dip
• Fermented bean paste

References

• Hsiung, Deh-Ta (2000). The Chinese Kitchen: A Book of Essential Ingredients with Over 200 Easy and Authentic Recipes. Foreword by Ken Hom. St. Martin's Press.
  ISBN 978-0-312-24699-0.[1]