Red Bean Ice Cream: Summer Vacays to the Homeland

I want to say that this is the first time I've had red bean ice cream while in the US, but I feel like that isn't true. It's not like red bean is a super absurd flavor these days. Regardless of the accuracy of my memory, red bean ice cream is something I tend to affiliate with hot, dusty, humid summer days in China visiting family. Every 4ish years or so, we go back to China and, if you have any sense of what Chinese family reunions are like, its a big old time. So much food. So much nice dining. So much one uncle insisting over the other to pay. So much fish oil to bring from the US (and chocolate of course). So much cutesy mechanical pencils and stationary to bring back. It's great.

One of the memories I have from these visits is the reasonable, yet possibly absurd amount of ice cream my siblings and I would consume on a daily basis while being shuttled from one monument to the next. Sure there were some normal flavors, like drumsticks and plain vanillas, but there were also some (at first) fascinating flavors that we probably only tried after the insistence of our mother. Some classic flavors include red bean, green bean, and one that we called "green tongue jello," whose actual name still evades me as a semi-adult.

I'm not sure if this ice cream was a strongly red bean flavored as I would have liked. The super DIY-er in me bought red beans rather than just pre-cooked, sweetened red beans--definitely the easier route. In my defense, I was not deliberately trying to be a hipster or snob. I literally did not realize that pre-made red bean paste exists. This is probably also pretty telling of how terrible I am at grocery shopping if I didn't notice the red bean paste sitting a few shelves away from the dry red beans.

Thankfully, making your own red bean paste is not that difficult- and probably even better if you're particularly picking about the texture or sweetness of your paste. My stove is unnecessarily hot at times, so I did accidentally burn some of the beans when the water got dangerously low while "simmering." Its unclear if this is a placebo effect, but I do feel like after a few days, the ice cream has gotten richer in red bean flavor compared to when it was freshly churned. Orrrrr, I just have really really messed up taste buds from all that sugar.
Regardless, it may not be my best ice cream yet, but its definitely one I plan to try making again at some point. And as a side note, happy belated mid-autumn festival! Go eat some mooncakes!
Ice cream and red bean paste recipe from food52.