Homemade Lotus Seed Paste

For the Skang Kee mooncake recipe. This recipe makes a whole bitchload of lotus seed paste, but it's also a pain in the ass to make and keeps well in the fridge, so you might as well make a whole bunch at once. This cranks out about a quart of paste.

Ingredients:

- 300g dried lotus seeds

- 250g sugar

- 200g oil

- 30g maltose or some kind of honey/malty syrup

Wash and soak your dried lotus seeds for 4 hours, until they're soft. When they're soft, split them, poke out the green sprout thing in the middle (it's bitter), and put them in an instant pot. Cover with enough water to be just a little under an inch from the top of the seeds. Pressure cook on high for 15 minutes. Do a natural release.

Use a slotted spoon to pull out all the cooked lotus seeds into a food processor, add a tiny bit of the cooking liquid, and then blend until it's a smooth paste.

In a large pan on the stovetop, sprinkle in like 1/4 cup of the sugar you measured out. Turn the heat to low/med and carefully make caramel (don't stir, just slide the pan and let it brown). If you fuck it up a little bit, you can add a touch of boiling water to dissolve the sugar crystals and try again, but really try hard not to get crystals. Once you have caramel in the pan, pour the blended lotus seed paste and stir with remaining sugar until the paste starts to dry up a little bit. Add 1/3 of the oil to the pan and mix. When it is absorbed, add 1/3 more, let it absorb. Add the last 1/3 of the oil in, then once it absorbs, turn off the heat and stir in the maltose. The paste should easily come away from the sides of the pan, but not be too crumbly or dry. If it's too dry, add a tiny bit of boiling water and stir in the pan over heat until it loosens up. Cool completely before using. Stores in the fridge for like 2 weeks.