Recipe - How To Make Crispy Soya Beans

crispy soya beans

What is crispy soya beans ? They are crushed soya beans cooked in hot oil until crispy. They have a crunch much like roasted peanuts but with a flavour of its own.

How are they used? Many years ago, I had this dish - Salmon fillet steamed with crispy soya beans at a Chinese restaurant, called Noble House. The restaurant has recently closed its doors because of redevelopment.

The dish was like "wow" and I had to try to replicate it at home.

soya beans

It wasn't easy. After many failed attempts, I gave up. But only for while, meaning  a few years. What I did not know was that the garnishing was a pairing of two ingredients - crispy soya beans and salted soya bean paste. One gives the crunch and the other gives the salty taste.


About 100 grams of soya beans is enough for garnishing a serving of fish.
Soak the soya beans for an hour to soften them. The beans are real hard.

Braun chopper

The next step is to crush the soya beans into small bits. I used an electric kitchen chopper. The other way is to pound the beans in mortar with pestle.

Once the beans are coarsely chopped into bits, they are ready for frying. I use microwave oven. Put the chopped soya beans in a bowl and cover them with oil (about 2 tbs).

It takes about 8 minutes to cook them into golden brown.

Start with 2 minutes, heat on high, take out and stir to ensure even cooking. Continue heating on high for 1 minute and then increments of 30 seconds until they turn golden brown.

Drain the crispy soya beans on a paper towel and keep the oil for frying.

(Note: The crispy soya beans goes very well as a topping for any steamed fish fillet. To enjoy the dish to the fullest, the fillet should be boneless. You can fry the crushed soya beans with the salted soya bean paste or you can just rub a dash of the salted soya bean paste on the fish for steaming and top the steam fish separately with the crispy soya beans.)

Two posts where I used the crispy soya beans for steamed fish:
Steam salmon with crispy soya beans
Steam tuna with crispy soya beans

I have not seen crispy soya beans on the shelves of supermarkets here, but it seems that they are quite popular in Taiwan. In this 6 minute video, the hostess uses crispy soya beans paired with hot soya bean paste to garnish the fried fish.



Another Taiwanese video on how to garnish the steam fish with crispy soya beans.

Nice