Yumi’s Quick Koshian

Ingredient	About 2 lbs.	About 900g
dried azuki beans	1 rice-cooker cup	1 rice-cooker cup
sugar	1 rice-cooker cup	1 rice-cooker cup
water	6½ rice-cooker cups	6½ rice-cooker cups

This recipe for koshian, or smooth-textured anko, is an alternative to our whole-bean tsubuan recipe. It’s a perfect match for the velvety wrap of Yumi’s Daifuku and is easy to make as well.

While koshian is usually made by removing the skin of the beans, Yumi’s clever shortcut uses a rice cooker and food processor to speed up the process and preserve the nutrition that would otherwise go to waste.

Directions

Wash and soak the beans.
Rinse 1 rice-cooker cup of dried beans, then cover them with cold water and leave them to soak overnight.
Drain and cook the beans.
Drain the beans and put them in a rice cooker with 6½ rice-cooker cups of water; set the rice cooker to the normal rice setting and let it cook (about two hours).
Process beans.
When they’re finished cooking transfer the beans in a food processor and process until smooth.
Add sugar and cook down.
Transfer the beans to a pot and add sugar; Yumi usually uses a little less than 1 rice-cooker cup, but you can use more if you like it sweeter. Cook over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until thick. The koshian is done when a spoon scraped through it leaves the bottom of the pan exposed; the beans should stick to the spoon in a firm glob.
Cool.
Let the koshian cool before working with it.

Notes

The recipe uses the special measuring cup that rice cookers usually come with. While the proportions will come out the same regardless of the cup you use, so long as you use the same one for everything, a rice-cooker cup is 180ml (¾ cup). The amounts used work out to ¾ cup (180ml) of beans, a little under 5 cups (1200ml) of water, and about ¾ cup (180ml) of sugar.
The amount of sugar can be adjusted, depending on how sweet you like it and what you’ll be using it for; reduce the sugar a little for less sweet, or increase by a little if you like it particularly sweet.
The amount of water can be adjusted a little to vary texture; between 6 and 6½ rice-cooker cups should work.
If you skip the food processor step, you get tsubuan — whole bean anko.