Mung Bean Soup (Kacang Hidjau)

Soup made of beans are lovely but can be heavy in flavor and content too. This delicious Indonesian mung bean soup is different. Mung beans are used for instance to make bean sprouts (taugé) or to make a sweet porridge : bubur kacang hidjau.

But I love soup of mung beans too because it is super easy to make and the ingredients are simple but the flavors are big ;-).

This soup from Kacang Hidjau is ready in 45 minutes and enough for at least 5 people.

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Mung bean soup (Kacang Hidjau) # 117 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch kookboek, page 125.

Ingredients

• 250 grams kacang hidjau
• 1 liter of broth
• 100 grams of leek

Herbs

• 3 tablespoons of chopped onions
• 3 tablespoons of chopped celery
• 4 tablespoons of oil

1. Soak the kacang hidjau overnight
2. Cook the beans until done in the water it has soaked and the stock.
3. Strain the beans.
4. Fry the onions until golden brown in the oil, remove them, and sauté the chopped leek and the chopped celery into the rest of the oil. It is also delicious to add a few slices of bacon to this mix.
5. Stir this through the soup.
6. Let the soup simmer for a few more minutes.
7. Serve the soup with the fried onions on top.

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These are all the ingredients; very simple, like the soup itself. My husband is allergic to celery so I use flat parsley instead. That works just as well.

I simply buy mung beans at the supermarket. I get them dried because I like to make bean sprouts myself, by soaking the beans over night and then spreading them into a plastic container.

I leave this covered with a paper towel for about 2-4 days. I add a bit of water every other day. The beans will pop and grow a nice sprout. Decide when you like them best, after 3 days when they are still young or a little matured with some green leaves.

Cooking mung beans

I leave my kacang hidjau soaking in some water overnight. When you can squize them easily they are done and can be cooked.

I boil the beans in the same water they have soaked in. I cook them until they are done. That takes about 12 minutes.

Beb strains the beans in her recipe but doesn’t explain why. I strain them too, but I keep the broth. This is quite handy because now you can adjust the amount of the broth the soup needs in the end.

Onions

I sauteé my onions well. They turn into sweet and tender slices. This gives a lot of flavor to the soup.

Beb takes the onions out of the pan before she sautées the leeks. I leave the onions in because they add so much sweetness to the flavor. I add the cleaned leeks too and at the end I mix in the flat parsley (or celery like in Beb’s recipe).

Now the cooked mung beans can be poured back in to the pan. They have hold their shape, but are tender and delicious.

Now the broth can poured in to the pan as wel. I taste if everything needs some more salt. I add another half teaspoon and let it simmer for a few minutes.

Beb talks about fried bacon that can be added. That sounds great, but we have friends over who are Muslim, so I buy beef meatballs especially made for soup. Tasty and easy! I add them when the soup cooks very gently. The balls are done within 5 minutes and you can serve immediately.

I serve (on Beb’s advice) the soup with fried onions but I do not use my onions but I buy fried onions at my Asian food store. I also stir a sambal in to my bowl of soup. I use my homemade sambal badjak. Want to see more homemade sambal recipes? Check out this link.