This page looks best with JavaScript enabled

Recipe of Quick Adzuki and Sweet Potato Yokan

 ·  ☕ 6 min read  ·  ✍️ Marie McKenzie

Adzuki and Sweet Potato Yokan

Hello everybody, I hope you’re having an amazing day today. Today, I’m gonna show you how to make a special dish, adzuki and sweet potato yokan. It is one of my favorites. For mine, I will make it a little bit tasty. This will be really delicious.

Great recipe for Adzuki and Sweet Potato Yokan. Cookpad user Bubukun's recipe, "Sweet Carrots in the Rice Cooker" gave me the idea of cooking sweet potato like this. Adjust the amount of maple syrup to taste. When you put the mixture into a container, it is important to remove bubbles.

Adzuki and Sweet Potato Yokan is one of the most favored of recent trending meals in the world. It’s simple, it is quick, it tastes delicious. It is enjoyed by millions daily. They are fine and they look fantastic. Adzuki and Sweet Potato Yokan is something which I have loved my whole life.

To begin with this particular recipe, we have to first prepare a few ingredients. You can cook adzuki and sweet potato yokan using 6 ingredients and 8 steps. Here is how you cook that.

The ingredients needed to make Adzuki and Sweet Potato Yokan:
  1. Prepare 200 grams Sweet potato
  2. Take 100 grams Koshi-an or tsubu-an
  3. Get 1 pinch Salt
  4. Get 1 tbsp Maple syrup
  5. Get 100 ml Water
  6. Prepare 2 grams Kanten powder

Our last trip to the local Asian supermarket to buy pulses resulted in the familiar split peas and butter beans, plus something called red cow peas. Early yokan was mushi-yokan (steamed yokan) made by mixing adzuki beans with wheat flour or powdered arrowroot. Imo-yokan (yokan containing sweet potato paste) and Uiro (a sort of sweetened steamed cake made of rice powder) were derived from mushi-yokan. In those days, sugar was very valuable because it was not produced domestically.

Steps to make Adzuki and Sweet Potato Yokan:
  1. Put the sweet potato in a rice cooker with 500 ml of water (not listed). Press Start and wait until the cooking is finished. Check with a skewer to see if it's cooked through. If it is not cooked enough press the Start button again until it's done (you can also microwave or boil the sweet potato if you'd prefer).
  2. Peel the sweet potato and mash. Add salt and maple syrup and mix well.
  3. Make the kanten solution. Combine water and kanten in a sauce pan and bring to a boil, stirring with a balloon whisk. After bringing to a boil, reduce the heat to low and continue to cook and stir for 1 minute.
  4. Take 3 tablespoons of the kanten solution and add to the adzuki bean paste. Mix well.
  5. Transfer the bean paste to a container (I use a 15 x 10 x 4 cm plastic container). Flatten the surface and get rid of bubbles.
  6. Add the rest of the kanten solution to the sweet potato mash. Mix well.
  7. Transfer Step 6 to the container with the bean paste (make sure the anko has settled for at least 2 minutes before to let it settle a little and it will be easier to form). Press down tightly and do not leave bubbles between the adzuki and sweet potato.
  8. Place in the fridge and chill until set. (It will set even at room temperature.)

Imo-yokan (yokan containing sweet potato paste) and Uiro (a sort of sweetened steamed cake made of rice powder) were derived from mushi-yokan. In those days, sugar was very valuable because it was not produced domestically. Mizu Yokan is a traditional Japanese dessert, or wagashi, as it is known in Japanese cuisine. Yokan is a general term which refers to this jelly dessert made of red azuki beans, agar, and sugar. The red azuki beans are in the form of tsubuan (smooth red bean paste) or koshian (coarse red bean paste).

Use Food to Elevate Your Mood

In general, people have been conditioned to believe that “comfort” foods are bad for the body and need to be avoided. However, if your comfort food is candy or junk food this holds true. Other times, comfort foods can be perfectly nutritious and good for us to eat. There are several foods that basically can boost your moods when you consume them. If you feel a little bit down and need a happiness pick me up, try a few of these.

Eggs, believe it or not, can be truly great at fighting back depression. You need to see to it, though, that what you make includes the egg yolk. Whenever you would like to cheer yourself up, the egg yolk is the most vital part of the egg. Eggs, the yolks in particular, are rich in B vitamins. B vitamins can be fantastic for raising your mood. This is because they help your neural transmitters–the parts of your brain that dictate your mood–work better. Consume an egg and be happy!

Put together a trail mixout of a variety of seeds and nuts. Your mood can be raised by eating peanuts, almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and other types of nuts. This is because these foods are loaded with magnesium, which helps to raise serotonin production. Serotonin is the “feel good” natural substance that dictates to your brain how you feel day in and day out. The more serotonin you have, the better you are going to feel. Not only that, nuts, particularly, are a great protein food source.

If you wish to defeat depression, try consuming some cold water fish. Wild salmon, herring, mackerel, trout, and tuna are all high in omega-3 fatty acids and DHA. These are two things that actually help the grey matter in your brain run a lot better. It’s true: consuming a tuna fish sandwich can really help you overcome depression.

It’s not hard to drive away your bad mood when you consume grains. Teff, barley, millet, quinoa, etc are all great for helping you feel better. They help you feel full too which can really help to make your mood better. It’s not difficult to feel low when you feel famished! The reason these grains are so wonderful for your mood is that they are not hard for your body to digest and process. You digest these grains more quickly than other things which can help promote your blood sugar levels, which, in turn, helps make you feel more pleasant, mood wise.

Your mood can truly be helped by green tea. You were simply anticipating to read that in this article, weren’t you? Green tea is loaded with an amino acid known as L-theanine. Research has proven that this amino acid promotes the production of brain waves. This helps better your mental sharpness while relaxing the rest of your body. You were already aware that that green tea helps you feel better. And now you know green tea can help you be happier as well!

So you see, you don’t need to eat junk food or foods that are terrible for you just so to feel better! Test out these suggestions instead!

Share on