Adzuki Bean Cakes

A perk about living with someone who works at a grocery co-op is the enormous amounts of free food that come home regularly. Last week J. brought home about ten pounds of adzuki beans. These little red beans are easily digestible, have a mild flavor and are good for breakfast. I cooked 2 cups of them with garlic and a an unidentified dried hot pepper I got from Sisters Camelot.



But, besides breakfast, what to do with my enormous pot of adzuki beans? I was thinking refried beans as I came home last night, but adzukis aren't particularly good for that--what I really wanted was to ruthlessly mash them. So I made fried bean cakes. I ate them with a nice salad, and with shandong noodles tossed with sweet chili sauce and peanut oil.


Adzuki Bean Cakes

1 1/2 C cooked adzuki beans, drained and mashed
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch ginger, minced
one green onion, minced
black sesame seeds
ground cumin
1/4 C nutritional yeast
1/4 C flour
1 egg
dash sesame oil
dash rice vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Mash everything together until the batter is reasonably thick--so it falls slowly off the spoon.

Fry, a heaping tablespoon at a time, in canola oil, in a cast iron skillet or wok, until brown.


Note:
Halfway through cooking this I realized that a) I am not a vegan b) There were no vegans in my house yesterday night who might like fried things to eat c) I bought nice organic free-range Minnesota eggs at the farmers' market on Saturday. I was so surprised to remember these things that I exclaimed "These don't have to be vegan!"

Vegans should substitute corn starch or egg replacer for the egg, or just make the batter thicker by taking care not to add more liquids and/or by adding more flour.