Mung Bean Pudding

This is a recipe is for a sweetened mung bean pudding served with salted coconut cream. This dessert can be found throughout Asia and to some the gooey, nutty mung bean and salty coconut cream is the taste of comfort.

The best part about this dessert is that it uses very few ingredients. If you don’t count salt and water, we’re using only four ingredients. Lucky for me I had four bags of mung bean in the pantry. This was another easy decision. And the recipe is so easy that I only have a couple of notes.

Notes:

Coconut Cream – If you don’t have coconut cream, you can use coconut milk. The difference between coconut milk and coconut cream is the water content. You can reduce the coconut milk over low heat to thicken it. But that’s unnecessary. I think it works just fine with either coconut milk or coconut cream.
Thickener – As mentioned in the recipe and the video, you can use corn starch if you don’t have tapioca starch. Just keep in mind that tapioca starch to corn starch substitution is 2:1. You will need 2 tablespoons of tapioca starch to 1 tablespoon corn starch.
Gelatinous – Increase the amount of water to 2 to 2 1/2 cup of water if you like the more gelatinous look where the mung beans look suspended in the pudding. If you increase the water to more than this, I would also increase the thickener by another tablespoon or so depending on how much water you add.

Mung Bean Pudding with Salted Coconut Cream

1 cup dried split mung bean (soaked for at least 4 hours)
1 ½ cup of water
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup coconut cream or coconut milk
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup tapioca starch + ¼ cup water – slurry (or 2 Tablespoons corn starch)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract or ¼ teaspoon pandan extract (optional)

• Drain the soaked mung beans and cook in a small saucepan with water for 10-15 minutes. Be careful not to overboil as the beans may disintegrate in the water. Alternatively, you can steam for 15-20 minutes in a steamer pot on a baking pan, cheese cloth or muslin cloth. When cooked, the beans will mash easily when pressed between your fingers.
• In small saucepan, gently heat coconut cream with salt until just before it starts to boil. Turn off the heat and remove. Allow to cool.
• In another saucepan, over medium heat, add sugar and 1 ½ cup water. Cook until sugar has dissolved, and you get a thin syrup. Add flavor extracts if you are using. Then add the cooked mung bean and mix well.
• Add slurry and stir frequently. Let it cook for 3-5 minutes until the tapioca starch/ cornstarch is clear and mixture has thickened.
• To serve, ladle the pudding into individual bowls and drizzle with coconut cream mixture.