If you like Japanese food at all, you’ve probably come across the adzuki bean in its red bean paste form. It is a common dessert ingredient and quite tasty. Being from the West I wasn’t sure about beans for dessert but liked red bean paste from my taste which was in ice cream. This was my first experience of adzuki beans in their original form.  In size and texture I found them too much like black beans but with a taste more like red beans only sweeter.

What I found fascinating is that adzuki beans have been in cultivation since at least 4000 BC in Japan. To put that into context, which was about the time that corn was being domesticated in Mexico and the Great Pyramids were being built in Egypt. One little red bean has been grown and eaten for 6,000 years, well, it’s tasty, of course it has!

This salad is pretty quick to through together, particularly if you buy all your products prepped. The recipe for Peanut Butter Dressing can be found here. Continue reading →