Nagaimo Mung Bean Dessert

Nagaimo is also called 山药 or 淮山 in Chinese.  It is a type of yam that can be consume raw.  It has long been traditionally used as Chinese medicine and herbology.  They cut it and dried it in pieces for cooking Chinese herbal soup.  It's the white color herb that we called it 淮山.  I just learned that it has other name which is 山药 from my Chinese friends.  I learned this dessert from them as they gave me a container to try.  It was my first time tasting fresh Nagaimo, frankly I didn't like it as they cut it into big chunks.  It was similar to potato in taste but full of potassium, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin B1, and more.  It is also low in calories and a high protein tuber.  I saw a Chinese cooking show, where they put cubed and blanched Nagaimo and Pumpkin into heated milk and serve it as breakfast.  Usually you can cook it like what you would normally cook a potato dish.

You can read more about Nagaimo here. And more about the nutritional facts here.

In this dessert, I diced the Nagaimo into small cubes so that it was easier for me.  Since I cooked it in a slow cooker, some of the Nagaimo was blended into the soup when stirring.  It still have pieces of Nagaimo but quite pleasant since it was not in big chunks.  Definitely a dessert I will be cooking if I buy Nagaimo again.

Ingredients:

• Nagaimo, a segment of it (more or less depended on how much you like it)
• 1 cup of mung beans
• A small piece of ginger, peeled and chopped into tiny pieces or leave it in big piece and smashed it if you want to take it out after cooking
• Rock sugar to taste
• Water to cover double the amount

The water amount that I used

Method:

1.  Peel the Nagaimo with a peeler (careful when holding it because very slimy and slippery), then rinse with tap water.  Diced into small pieces (you can cut it into bigger pieces if you like to eat it in chunks).

2.  Wash by rinsing the mung beans several times until the water is cleared.

3.  In a slow cooker, add in mung bean, chopped ginger, Nagaimo and cover with water.  Slightly more than double the amount.  Turn to high and let it cook for 3-4 hours, or until the mung beans are broken out.

4.  Add in rock sugar to taste.  Stir or wait until sugar dissolved.  Mix some potato starch with water, stir to mix well.  Slowly add into the dessert and stir until thicken.  If not thick enough, add more potato starch water.

5.  Good serving it warm or cold.  Keep the leftover in a container in the refrigerator to enjoy it cold.  Refreshing during Summer.  Or keep warm in the slow cooker to enjoy it warm.

Note:  You can cook this on the stove too, just have to keep watch.