Mung beans

Every year for many years, Mom would soak mung beans for at least 24 hours, then start the arduous process of dehusking the beans for New Year's Day 빈대떡. It was a painstaking process involving individually removing the skins from each of the tiny beans. In later years, we would help her do this. Even with the additional help, it would take a few full days of work to finish the job.

Finally, in 2011, I decided to do some research to see if there were a better way to do this. First, I asked Mom how Koreans traditionally did this. Apparently, they would mill the dry beans coarsely, which would allow them to sift the skins from the broken beans. This is similar to how one degerms flour.

A bit of Internet searching suggested that the best way to dehusk the beans was to boil the soaked beans in plenty of water until the skins separate and rise to the top. You can then easily skim the skins off. This seemed anathema to Mom, since she didn't want to cook the beans before making the 빈대떡 batter.

The best solution seems to be to simply eat the skins. Various recipes recipes imply that mung bean husks aren't just edible, but they're nutritious and possibly even tasty! This is what we're going to try.