One of the easiest dishes you can make for the Japanese New Year (Oshogatsu) is Kuromame (黒豆) or sweet black soybeans. The soybeans are typically simmered on low heat over a long period of time in a syrup. To shorten the cooking process, we’ll cook the soybeans using a pressure cooker. This Instant Pot Kuromame will save you hours in the kitchen, so you can make one more dish for Osechi!
What is Kuromame?
Kuromame (黒豆) is literary black (黒) soybeans (豆) in Japanese. The soybeans are simmered in a sauce made of water, sugar, soy sauce, and salt, and then let soak for another day to yield a strikingly glossy and black appearance. They are delightfully sweet with just a tinge of savory flavor. It is one of the “sweet” side dishes served along with other savory osechi foods. When making kuromame, we place a great focus on the color of the black soybeans. The shinier and more intensely black they are, the higher the praise. In addition to the color, it is also important that the skin of the soybeans is not wrinkled. Shiny, pearl-like black soybeans are a subtle yet important piece of osechi.
The Secret to Enhancing the Color of Black Soybeans
Dried beans need to be soaked before cooking. When you soak black soybeans in water, the water turns dark purplish and the beans lose their color and become brown or reddish. Once you simmer the beans in the same water, they will regain their black/black-ish color. You may wonder how to make the black soybeans even MORE black. The answer is rusty iron nails. I know, I’m about to get some raised eyebrows… Dubious it may sound, this technique has been passed down for generations. Why rusty nail? Well, the rust (iron oxide) from nails has a chemical reaction with anthocyanins (chemicals that are located in the skin of black beans), which makes the beans dark. What people do is to clean the nails and wrap in cheesecloth to soak with the beans. Are there any cleaner and better “food-safety” alternative? Absolutely! The Lucky Iron Fish is a small iron cooking tool that infuses your meals with a healthy amount of natural iron to help prevent iron deficiency and anemia. It’s especially perfect for athletes, vegetarians, vegans, women, and kuromame makers like us! All you need to do is to soak the Lucky Iron Fish in the water along with the black soybeans. And after 4 hours of soaking, remove the iron fish (Update on 12/31/19: I kept the iron fish and pressure cook in the Instant Pot, and it was fine. I recommend leaving it in the pot.) Check out the color of the water. It turns completely black! Now you can proceed to cook the black soybeans. After pressure cooking, here is the final result of the kuromame. The result is pretty obvious. How about the taste? Whether you use the Lucky Iron Fish or not, they taste the same. What if you add the Lucky Iron Fish after cooking, does it become darker? No, it doesn’t become darker. It’s too late to rectify the color. Now is it worth $30 for buying the lucky fish? It might be good for you if you…
make kuromame every year for the Japanese New Year.need to impress your mother, mother-in-law, or Japanese guests who appreciate the beautiful black kuromame.have someone who lacks iron in their diet and takes a supplement. You can cook other food with iron fish.
Don’t Have an Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker?
Don’t worry! I have the recipe for cooking kuromame in a pot on the stovetop. I learned that kuromame cooked on the stovetop with the iron fish actually has a richer color than kuromame cooked in the Instant Pot with the iron fish. I hope you will include kuromame in your osechi menu. Here’s to good health and happiness! Wish to learn more about Japanese cooking? Sign up for our free newsletter to receive cooking tips & recipe updates! And stay in touch with me on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram. Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on December 25, 2018. It’s been republished in December 2020.
