Old Fools Journal: Winter Vegetables

Mung bean sprouts at 2½ days. This about ½ what I started with.

The problem with bean sprouts is when they just start to sprout and lose the green husk they taste so good. They have a nutty sweet taste that is good cooked or raw with about anything . This young they are like candy but as they get bigger a very light salting is good. I just pick them from the bowl and eat. I really like them in egg or spring rolls. Being a Mexican food fan I mix them in with frijoles or taco meat and make burritos. I call them Chinese burros or Mexican spring rolls. Of course they have chili and onion in them as well. For breakfast I scramble them with eggs and bell pepper or pimento. Actually I scramble them with just about anything. Sometimes it looks like I swept up the kitchen floor after a food fight. Eat with Chinese hot mustard on the side. Delicious.

I have read that it is healthy food but I really just eat them because they taste good. These are half the size they will get in a couple of more days but they are doomed. I'm tuning them into a waste product now. That's alright I just started a double batch.

They are easy to make and take little time, just rinse them 3 to 5 times a day depending how dry it is. They are good raw from two days on and cooked anytime. I started these because I had a desire for a avocado and bean sprout sandwich with Miracle Whip. They can be very healthy but I use to know a guy that stir fried them in bacon fat with the crumbled bacon and they were delicious. OK, OK it was me but I'm trying to quit.
I start them in a jar like this. These have been rinsed and will soak in water until bedtime then propped on its side so it will drain. The idea is to keep them damp but not immersed.
The lid is just a canning lid with a couple of layers of cheese cloth. Cheese cloth is white but mine is brown because I sprouted some pink beans and it dyed it this color.

In a couple of days of rinsing and draining they look like this. I rinse and drain when I get up in the morning then two to four times before going to bed. the idea is to not let them get too dry.

It's a fascinating thing these beans. They grow from a tiny oval bean to a two and a half inch (5-6.5cm) sprout on water and air. How can that be?

If left until they start making leaves they are called greens.
Dedicated wide pint jar for storing the dry mung bean.

I had a hard time finding them here. This is such a backwater that none of the grocery stores have them and as far as I can tell there are no health food stores. I found an small Asian grocery run by a Vietnamese family and of course they had them and cheap too. The locals think they are a luxury item if they even know what they are.