 Red bean cake is a type of Asian cake with a sweet red bean paste filling. It is made primarily with azuki beans.
Japanese cuisine
Mizuyokan (Japan) is made without the outer shell of steamed dough, and instead of a paste, the mashed beans are mixed with gelatin, cooled for an extended period of time, and then cut into squares and served.
Cantonese cuisine
Cantonese-style red bean cake is made with hardened red bean paste that has been frozen. The cake is sweetened and sprinkled with sesames. It is generally tough to bite, and is served as a square block. Depending on the particular region within China, this may seen as a year-round snack, or as a seasonal pastry consumed on certain Traditional Chinese holidays.
Cantonese (Yue) cuisine
Cantonese (Yue) cuisine comes from Guangdong Province in Southern China, or specifically from Guangzhou (Canton). Of all the regional varieties of Chinese cuisine, Cantonese is the best known outside China; most "Chinese restaurants" in Western countries serve authentic Cantonese cuisine and dishes based on it. Its prominence outside China is due to its palatability to Westerners and the great numbers of early emigrants from Guangdong. In China, too, it enjoys great prestige among the eight great traditions of Chinese cuisine, and Cantonese chefs are highly sought after throughout the country.
Cantonese cuisine draws upon a great diversity of ingredients, Guangzhou (Canton) being a great trading port since the days of the Thirteen Factories, bringing it many imported foods and ingredients. Besides pork, beef, and chicken, Cantonese cuisine incorporates almost all edible meats, including organ meats, chicken feet, duck and duck tongues, snakes, and snails. Many cooking methods are used, steaming, stir-frying, shallow frying, double boiling, braising, and deep-frying being the most common ones in Cantonese restaurants, due to their convenience and rapidity, and their ability to bring out the flavor of the freshest ingredients.
For many traditional Cantonese cooks, spices should be used in modest amounts to avoid overwhelming the flavors of the primary ingredients, and these primary ingredients in turn should be at the peak of their freshness and quality. Interestingly, there is no widespread use of fresh herbs in Cantonese cooking (and most other regional Chinese cuisines in fact), contrasting with the liberal usage seen in European cuisines and other Asian cuisines such as Thai or Vietnamese. Garlic chives and coriander leaves are notable exceptions, although the latter tends to be a mere garnish in most dishes.
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Chocolate Cake
