Mung Bean and Farfalle Soup

I decided to splurge and get a giant bag of Mung Beans from Kroger. I've never really had them before, and I've certainly never cooked with them. However, they're very nutritious so naturally I wanted to give them a try.



Basically, the two main options seem to be sprouting the mung beans or cooking them. I've tried both - sprouting takes a couple days but produces sweet little sprouts. I combined these with some edamame, soy sauce, sambal, and garlic for a delicious, light salad.

Cooking them requires furious boiling in 2:1 water:bean ratio for 10 minutes followed by roughly 1 - 2 hours of simmering. According to the package, you shouldn't season the beans until after they've cooked for at least an hour. Basically, I got the beans almost cooked through before adding them to the soup I made. Really, the soup is pretty basic and open to interpretation - I imagine potatoes in lieu of pasta would be delicious, as would frozen peas or other vegetables.

Mung Bean and Farfalle Soup

1 cup, par-cooked mung beans with cooking water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, diced
2 carrots, sliced
2 celery stalks, sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced

1 qt vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups farfalle (I used Barilla pasta plus just for the extra protein/amino acid wonderfulness)
salt and pepper to taste

Add the oil to a medium sized pot set over medium-high heat. Once the oil is heated through, add the onion, carrots, and celery. Saute for 10 - 15 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook an additional 5 minutes, reducing the heat to medium to prevent burning.



Add the beans to the vegetables, then add vegetable broth. At this point, season with salt and pepper. Increase the temperature to medium-high and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the farfalle and cook until the pasta is cooked through (typically about 10 minutes). Add a little more water or broth if the soup is too thick, but the quart of broth and reserved cooking water ended up being perfect for me.



There you have it - pretty clear and straightforward. Cooked mung beans have a texture similar to green lentils, but lack a little firmness in their bite, comparatively. I'll definitely be using them again, but I need to build on this soup to make it more substantial and full of veggies.

I think I'm getting in the mood for clam chowder. hmmm... Maybe clam chowder with mung beans?