Snack · 40 min · vietnamese

Che Ba Mau

Dried red beans does the heavy lifting here, with split mung beans rounding it out. A Vietnamese snack that takes 40 minutes, start to finish. Each serving lands at 477 calories with 13g of protein, so it eats like a much heavier meal. No specialty equipment and nothing hard to find at a regular grocery store.

✓ USDA-verified nutrition data

Ingredients

• 1 cup Dried red beans
• 1 cup Split mung beans
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 1 tbsp Agar powder
• 1 tsp Pandan extract
• 2 cups Coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 4 cups Crushed ice

Steps

1. Simmer the red beans in plenty of water until creamy but still holding their shape, about 45 minutes. Sweeten with a third of the sugar while hot.
2. Cook the mung beans until they collapse into a thick golden paste, then sweeten with another third of the sugar and a pinch of salt.
3. Boil the agar in 2 cups of water for a full minute to activate it, whisk in the pandan extract and remaining sugar, and pour into a shallow dish. Chill until firmly set, then cut into small cubes.
4. Warm the coconut milk with the salt until steaming, never boiling. That pinch of salt is the quiet secret that makes the whole dessert taste more like itself.
5. In tall glasses, layer red beans, then mung bean paste, then the green jelly cubes.
6. Pour over the salted coconut milk and top with a mountain of crushed ice. Serve with long spoons and stir everything together at the table.

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