Edamame, or; Beans as junk food: WTF?
culinaryoverlord
Regular
Edamame are soy beans, basically the same soy beans that are used to make soy sauce, soy milk, tofu and all the other soy based products out there. The type sold as edamame are bred for this purpose and are harvested at an immature stage, mature soybeans are slightly toxic unless processed. They are sold frozen and require almost no preparation.
This is a huge bag of edamame, usually they are sold in smaller bags, and I would not recommend this brand as it was cheap and had a lot of bunky pods. Make sure you buy them in the pods, shelled edamame are good in salads, but not as snack food.
Method;
Get a pot of water close to boiling, add 20ml/1 tablespoon salt for each liter of water. Toss in a few handfulls of pods and boil for 3 minutes, strain and put on a plate. Done, shortest method I have ever written.
Salt; use only sea salt, the big tube on the right holds granulated sea salt, the grinder at bottom center is what I use to grind it. For those of you using simple iodized salt, I would highly recommend using sea salt both at your table and always for edamame. If you think all salt is the same take a pinch of granulated iodized salt and taste it, then a pinch of sea salt and taste it, really dude, it's much better. So toss a little sea salt onto the pods and enjoy.
There is a bit of a technique to eating them, all you want is the bean inside the pod, the rest is tough and inedible. So put your teeth on the far side of a bean in the pod and bite down a bit, the bean should pop through the pod into your mouth while some of the salt on the pod gets into your mouth as well. You'll figure it out.
The taste is subtle and sweet, if I were to compare edamame to a western dish I would say it is most like corn on the cob, something that is flavorful on it's own, but with the addition of salt becomes amazing.
As far as "ethnic" food goes, this is pretty easy to get into, and easy to cook as well. We eat it instead of popcorn while watching movies, and it is a good thing to put on the table before a meal to keep people occupied while you get ready for dinner. There is also a fuckload of fiber and protein in edamame, as well as a lot of other good shit.
C/O
"also, they make for good farts"
This is a huge bag of edamame, usually they are sold in smaller bags, and I would not recommend this brand as it was cheap and had a lot of bunky pods. Make sure you buy them in the pods, shelled edamame are good in salads, but not as snack food.
Method;
Get a pot of water close to boiling, add 20ml/1 tablespoon salt for each liter of water. Toss in a few handfulls of pods and boil for 3 minutes, strain and put on a plate. Done, shortest method I have ever written.
Salt; use only sea salt, the big tube on the right holds granulated sea salt, the grinder at bottom center is what I use to grind it. For those of you using simple iodized salt, I would highly recommend using sea salt both at your table and always for edamame. If you think all salt is the same take a pinch of granulated iodized salt and taste it, then a pinch of sea salt and taste it, really dude, it's much better. So toss a little sea salt onto the pods and enjoy.
There is a bit of a technique to eating them, all you want is the bean inside the pod, the rest is tough and inedible. So put your teeth on the far side of a bean in the pod and bite down a bit, the bean should pop through the pod into your mouth while some of the salt on the pod gets into your mouth as well. You'll figure it out.
The taste is subtle and sweet, if I were to compare edamame to a western dish I would say it is most like corn on the cob, something that is flavorful on it's own, but with the addition of salt becomes amazing.
As far as "ethnic" food goes, this is pretty easy to get into, and easy to cook as well. We eat it instead of popcorn while watching movies, and it is a good thing to put on the table before a meal to keep people occupied while you get ready for dinner. There is also a fuckload of fiber and protein in edamame, as well as a lot of other good shit.
C/O
"also, they make for good farts"
Comments
C/O
"as opposed to my crack, which is crack"