Aduki Bean Roll

From The Vegan Diet: True Vegetarian Cookery, David Scott and Claire Golding, Rider, 1985.

Before getting into making this roll I had to first cook the aduki beans. Never having cooked them before I had to do a little reference work to find out how long they would take to cook. The volume I consulted told me 30 minutes, so I put 175g aduki beans in a bowl in the morning, covered them with water and left them to soak until I was ready to cook them later in the afternoon.

Later that day I drained the beans, rinsed them and then put them in a saucepan with water to cook. When 30 minutes had gone by I tested them and found that they were cooked. Now I could begin the rest of the recipe.

A small onion was chopped as well as a garlic clove. They went into a pan with oil to cook until softened. Now I added 225g sliced mushrooms and continued the cooking until the mushrooms were done.  This mixture went into the blender with the aduki beans and 100g ground almonds. The mixture was blended until reasonably smooth.

Flaky pastry was rolled out to a rectangle about 40cm by 25cm. The bean mix was laid out on one half in a thick sausage shape. The other half of the pastry was folded over and sealed along the edge with a little water. I laid the roll on a greased baking tray with the joined edge underneath. It was cooked in a 200ºC oven for about half an hour. The roll was now rested for about 5 minutes, sliced and served.

While the roll was quite tasty it was very dry and needed a sauce of some sort. There was a nuttiness to the flavour that I quite enjoyed. The next day I had some of the remainder with tomato sauce—the only sauce that was handy—and it was improved considerably.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔