The first time that I tried edamame was nearly a decade ago at a Japanese restaurant. My friend, who had been there before urged me to order them, but I declined. I mean… a bowl of beans cooked in salted water? Really? How was I supposed to get excited about that?
Of course, I tried them and of course, I loved them. There was something so fundamentally satisfying about sharing a communal bowl of humble beans, digging them out of their shells with our fingers. and popping them in our mouths. But it was not just about the ritual, it was also about flavor– delicate, buttery, nutty, addictive.
I searched for edamame in markets and health food stores but they just weren't available back then. At least not in my area. So I grew them. And have been growing them since.
Soybeans are an amazingly versatile food. From them, we can produce oil, butter, milk, yogurt, cereal, flour, cheese and meat analogs. And that's not even mentioning the umami-rich fermented products: soy sauce, miso, tempeh, funky natto, and fermented black beans, or douchi.
Douchi are made by fermenting and salting whole black soybeans. The process results in dry, soft, salty beans with a complex aroma profile similar to chocolate and coffee [which, if you think about it, are fermented beans]. The difference being that while douchi are salted, chocolate and coffee go on to be roasted.
When soybeans are in season in my garden, I treat them like corn. Before heading out to the garden, I put on a pot of salted water. By the time that I return, the water is at a rolling boil. The beans cook in their pods for 8 minutes, no more. These I like to eat scalding hot, burning my fingers on the shells, with a small bowl of salt or ground douchi [which, if you think about it, can act like salt]. But I always save some to chill down and nibble on later with a cold beer, much like peanuts [which, if you think about it, is also a legume].
Funny how things are connected.
Playing with Fire and Water 
We usually have to resort to frozen beans at home because fresh is hard to get here as well. Funny isn’t it, with all of the soy grown in the USA that it’s all going to processing.
I’d like to try your fresh beans cooked in Ming’s method mimicking her mom’s style.
http://chadzilla.typepad.com/chadzilla/2008/10/edamame-mommy-style.html
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wow love this blog! i just recently started getting into molecular gastronomy cause of Tony Bourdain profiling Ferran Adria and Albert Adria. I am looking to start practicing some of these techniques soon!
Ill start out nice and slow with a purchase of Tapioca Maltodextrin or whatever and powder the hell out of my olive oil.
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nice and slow is good
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