Mung Bean Sticky rice (Xôi Xéo) the easy way

Personally, I don’t eat much rice but I’m completely enamored of sticky rice, whether savory or sweet…

What is sticky rice?

Sticky rice is a low amylose/high amylopectin grain and cooks to a sticky, chewy texture and translucent look, with a distinctive aroma. It is also known as “sweet” or “glutinous” rice although it actually contains no gluten. Sticky rice is a staple of South-East Asian and Chinese regional cuisines.

In Asia, we could eat sticky rice for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and as a snack as well. It’s really delicious and satisfying!

Asian stores sell a wide variety of sticky rice, short, long or medium grain, white, brown or black grains. If you can’t find sticky rice near you, you could order online here.

There are so many ways to prepare sticky rice. The traditional way to cook sticky rice is to soak the raw rice for a few hours then cook it in a bamboo steamer. To enhance the flavor, sometimes coconut milk or pandan juice is added.

What are mung beans?

In Asia, we grew up eating mung beans and it has never occurred to me until recent years that mung beans are actually a super food!

According to Healthline, mung beans are packed with antioxidants and nutrients like potassium, magnesium, folate, fiber, and vitamin B6. These beans are one of the best plant-based sources of protein. They’re rich in essential amino acids, such as phenylalanine, leucine, isoleucine, valine, lysine, arginine and more.

Cooked mung beans are used whole or mashed into a paste for many savory and sweet dishes in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian and Middle Eastern cuisines. Mung beans are widely available in Asian or Indian stores (called “Moong Dal”). If you can’t find them near you, you can buy on line here.

Mung beans are usually sold whole with a green shell (they look like green color hard round beans), or shelled, split mung beans (yellow color beans). For this recipe, we are using the yellow shelled split mung beans.

You need to plan ahead for this dish, as the split mung beans need to be soaked for a few hours or, better, overnight.

Mung beans Sticky rice (Xôi Xéo), the easy way with a rice cooker

This dish is not to be confused with Xôi Vò, which is another popular sticky rice dish, where the steamed mung beans are mashed into a dry paste and rubbed with the cooked sticky rice.

Xôi Xéo is vegan and I could eat it on its own, as a meal, it’s so delicious. Or you could serve it with grilled meat like chicken. I was really craving for it the other day, and luckily I have both ingredients, sticky rice and mung beans, in my pantry, so I decided to make it. Since that was a week night, and I had a lot of work to handle, I used a shortcut to make this dish by cooking the sticky rice and mung beans together in the rice cooker. The result is perfect, the texture is soft and slightly chewy.

If you decide to double the ingredients portions, as a safety measure, put a kitchen towel under the rice cooker to soak any liquid that may spill out of the rice cooker during cooking. When cooking, the mung beans tend to make the boiling water bubble up quite a bit.

If you often cook rice, it’s definitely a great investment to get a high quality rice cooker, it will probably last for a lifetime! The rice cooker is really versatile and you can use it for steaming and braising as well.

Ingredients (for 4 servings as appetizer, or 2 servings as main course)

1 cup of uncooked sticky or glutinous rice

1/2 cup of split yellow mung beans

3/4 cup room temperature water

1/2 teaspoon salt

Garnish

2 tablespoons peanuts

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

1/4 teaspoon sugar (optional)

Fried crispy shallots (optional) – If you don’t have time to fry the shallots, you can buy a jar in Asian stores or order online here

Instructions

• The day before, put the mung beans in a bowl and wash and drain a few times till the water runs clear. Fill the bowl with water and soak for at least 6 hours or overnight.

• About couple of hours before serving, put the raw sticky rice in a bowl, wash and drain a few times till the water runs clear. Soak the sticky rice in room temperature water for an hour.

• Drain the water from the sticky rice and mung beans.

• Pour the rice into the rice cooker. With a spatula, gently spread the rice to form an even layer.

• Scoop the mung beans on top of the rice. With the spatula, gently spread the mungbeans to form an even layer on top of the rice layer.

• Sprinkle the salt all over the mung beans.

• Fill a measuring cup with water up to 3/4 cup. Gently pour the water against the inside side of the rice cooker all around. The water should barely cover the mungbeans. Make sure not to add too much water or the sticky rice would be mushy.

• Set the rice cooker to “cook”. When the cooking cycle has ended (around 20 minutes), open the lid and gently mix the mung beans and rice together. Unplug the rice cooker. Close the lid and let the rice/mung beans mixture rest for 10 minutes.

• While the rice is cooking, put the peanuts and sesame seeds in an oven-safe small tray, heat in the toaster oven for around 5-7 minutes till golden and fragrant. Crush the peanuts and sesame seeds (either use a mortar & pestle, or put the peanuts and sesame seeds in a zipblock bag, close it, and crush the nuts and seeds with a heavy object like a can. If you wish, add the salt and sugar to the crushed peanuts and sesame seeds and mix. Sprinkle the nuts mixture and fried shallots over the sticky rice. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The mung bean sticky rice can be enjoyed on its own, or you could serve it with a grilled meat like BBQ or grilled chicken wings. Here, I have served the mung bean sticky rice with baked Pok Pok chicken wings. Here’s the recipe. Enjoy!

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