• あん is made from red 小豆(あずき) beans or white beans such as 手亡豆(てぼうまめ).
  • 小豆 are made in different regions in Japan (and outside). Most of the Japanese production is in 北海道, but there is also some production near 京都 (called 丹波). The latter cost about 3 times as much. When buying beans, the bright colour is a good indicator of quality.
  • 小豆 are a bit bitter, which white beans usually aren't. Because of this, when cooking you'll do 渋切り(しぶきり).
• You differentiate between 粒(つぶ)あん and こし餡. The former cooks the beans in their entirety, the latter removes their skins to make a smooth paste.
  • You could technically make 粒あん with white beans, but it's not very common. Because of this, when I write 白あん below, I mean こし餡 from white beans.
  • You can go one step further and make さらし餡, where you wash the pulp to make it very delicate. This you can do for both white beans and 小豆 beans. In the latter case, you'll be rewarded with a very nice colour (紫), but also lose a lot of the flavour.

🧂 Be very careful about adding salt when adding sugar. In Western pastries it is a very good rule to add 0.5% of sugar in salt, but in Japanese sweets it's more obvious (or Japanese palates, or just KM's in particular, pick up on it more easily).

• Before adding any sugar, the beans need cooking.
• Depending on the variety of the bean, they might not even need soaking overnight.
• ビックリ水: As the water comes to a boil, add fresh water until all the beans settle at the bottom of the pot. Remove some water, if necessary. This you do so the beans cook through more evenly

• There are different philosophies about the cooking liquid. To retain more 風味, preserve it.
• Mash the beans, return to the cooking liquid. Shake out the skins.
• Wash the skins again, they still contain quite a bit of bean paste. Leave that washing water to settle, adding the settlement afterwards.
• Pour the cooking liquid through a fine sieve to get rid of the germs, then through a cloth and squeeze out the liquid.
• For 500 gr of dry beans, you should get about 600 gr of 生あん (depending on how hard you squeeze; but it's best to continue the recipe using this number).

• Add all the sugar and 水飴, if using, with half of the 生餡. Like this, the sugar has a chance to melt (you can also add a little bit of water to speed up the melting). As soon as it starts to boil, add the rest of the 生餡 and reduce while stirring constantly (川」) until the dough stands by itself. This too takes about 10'.
• This should yield about 700 gr of 白あん.

➡️ The recipe for 練り切りたね is on the 練り切り page. Remember that you could start from finished 白あん, but it's easier to work in one step from the 生餡.

➡️ I tried peeling the beans before straining, but passing them through the Flotte Lotte and then through the Tamiz, I couldn't taste the difference.

• Chestnuts: Half and half vermicelles and 白あん (for autumn)
• Coffee: 米満老舗 in 京都, an otherwise thoroughly unremarkable shop, make a tasty coffee 大福 where they add some milk foam to the coffee-flavoured 白あん filling.
• egg: 黄身餡 adds some cooked, strained egg yolk. You can also make it with fresh yolk and cook that again, but KM gave me a very strong reaction because of the rawer egg taste, so maybe that's not for everyone.
• 黒ごま餡: Mix in 5% of black sesame paste. It's a beautiful flavour, and I think should be much more widely used, for example in the 木枯らし or the けし餅. Could also work well in the わらび餅, especially if you use black sugar instead of regular sugar in the making.
• 味噌: For the 花弁餅, you use 味噌餡 (to which I like to add some beure noisette).
• peas: うぐいす餡 uses peas, which is very nice, because they cook in about 20' and don't need soaking. This あん likes it if some 日本酒 is added. I use this in my 雪間の声!
• 桜あん:
  • 10% of salted cherry blossoms to 白あん. Rinse them thoroughly, then separate stems. Blot dry, chop and mix. Colour あん slightly pink. I use this, for example, in my 吉野窓.
  • Leafy 桜餡: 2 leaves of salted cherry blossom leaves finely chopped with 200 gr of 白あん. Add some colour as well. Aromatically much more interesting than the flowery 桜餡. Works well in そば饅頭, for example.
• Walnuts: Add candied walnuts and a dash of 味噌 (quite nice with 饅頭, I think)

• This I stole from Argyi, but I changed the ratios from 10:4 (餡:chocolate) to be more moderate.
  • Temper 30 gr dark chocolate (melt 20 gr on bain-marie, then add remaining 10 gr and melt them in the residual heat)
  • Warm 100 gr of 白あん to 30°C
  • Mix!
• I like to use this in the 山みち.

• Pineapple jam from the Taiwanese pineapple cakes works well in かるかん, for example.
• The milk filling from midye baklava is also nice for 練り切り, for example!

• I got a recipe from LK and from KM in my drive.
• Also an LK recipe for 黄身餡 (with egg)

• You'll be tempted to buy from stores like nishi in CH, but their あん has no taste whatsoëver.
• 内藤 make a fantastic 白あん