Mung Bean Jelly- Liangfen

Have you ever tried this melt-in-mouth, cold jelly noodle made from mung bean starch or fresh mung beans? It has several names including Liangfen and Chinese jelly noodles. The Chinese name 凉粉 means cold noodles. It is one type of Jelly noodle that is quite popular in the western part of China.

Liangfen can be made with starch, pea starch, sweet potato starch, or mung bean starch. In today’s recipe, I amusing mung bean to make mung bean jelly noodles. They are crystal, smooth, and cool.

Heartbreaking Jelly Noodles

There is a famous dish in Sichuan province named Beichuan Liangfen (heartbreaking jelly noodles). It is featured by the spicy taste.  If you feel sad or heartbreaking, go and taste it, then your sadness will go with the wind since it is too spicy so that all the feeling you have is a spicy taste. In addition to an easy Sichuan-style dressing jelly noodle salad, those jelly noodles can be also stir-fried. Fried jelly noodle is a famous street food.

Two ways of making mung bean jelly noodles

We provide two ways of making mung bean jelly noodles, either from mung bean starch or from mung bean directly.

• If you have mung bean starch, it is super easy to make jelly noodles. It will be white, transparent in color.
• In any case that mung bean starch is hard to find, you can use fresh mung beans to make the jelly. Soak the beans and then blended them with water to get the colored starch water. The jelly noodle made with mung bean has a lovely green color that can be super appealing in summer.

Water and starch ratio

My favorite ratio of jelly noodles is 1:9 (starch vs water, weight ratio). But it can succeed with small adjustments. But you need to add at least 8 portions of water or 10 portions of water at most for each portion of starch. The more water you add, the more tender the jelly noodle can be.

You can also use roasted chili pepper sauce (烧椒汁) in the bok choy soup.

Instructions

Make the starch and water mixture from fresh mung beans

Soak the mung beans in cold water for at least 4 hours. On summer days, place it in the fridge.

Then add water and blend until very smooth. Use a very fine cloth to remove the pulps and get the start water only. You can add more water to further wash the pulp to get more starch. Let the mixture stand for around 2 hours until the starch is settled (in the fridge on summer days).

Then carefully pour the water above off because we need to measure for the next step.

Next, measure 800ml water from the previous step, and add salt, and baking soda. Mix well.

Make the mixture with mung bean starch

In a large bowl, mung bean starch with water.

Heat

Then pour the mixture into a large sauce pot or wok, and heat until it gets a consistency jelly-like texture. Don’t let the mixture boil because it may bring small bubbles inside the jelly. The process of using mung bean starch is the same, but you will get a white transparent texture.

Transfer out to a round or rectangular container, and cool down completely.

Then cut into small strips. Mix well with the salad dressing.

What to serve with

• Mung bean noodles can be served with any type of main course dishes like Hong Shao Rou, and Mapo tofu.
• Another popular way is to serve with congee as a quick meal.
• You can also enjoy it as a street snack.

Storage Tips

If possible, eat them within 1 day. Those jelly noodles go bad very quickly in summer.