'dried small red beans (Tzik Siu dou)' => ricebean?

[hortusbrambonii]

I brought a small bag with small red beans home from the Chinese supermarket with no more name than dried small red beans (Tzik Siu dou)'. The transcibed chinese name is ungoogleable.

(Hmm, can't upload a picture)

They are smaller than Azuki-beans, red and and long in shape and look like the beans on the wikipedia on ricebeans.
Can I safely assume them to be rice beans?

And the more important question for now: can I eat them raw/semi-raw (wokked) when sprouted in a Taugé-like fashion? (That was my actual plan with them.)

Maybe blueadzuki can tell me more here?

[blueadzuki]

That certainly sounds like rice beans. but as to how to cook them, your guess is as good as mine (I actually have never tried to eat any of them (except for biting an unripe pod or two to test it as a green bean) I think the Chinese tend to use them much like adzukis so you're probably OK. Just pick them over carefully, rice beans have a LOT more hard seeds than adzukis (less heavily bred, so more wild traits left).

[hortusbrambonii]

You've grown (or tried to) them in colors that hardly even exist and you've never even tasted them? (I can't say much, I still haven't eaten even one of the infamous 'Chinese board beans' that turned out to be white Lablab; even though I've tried twice -and failed- to grow them-...)

I don't suppose to get much yield from a tropical plant in Belgium, so sprouts is probably the best thing to do, and the thing I wanted to experiment with. I suppose that I can eat not just Mung beans but also the other Asian Vigna-beans as sprouting vegetable in Taugé-style? I've read about Adzuki as fresh sprouts, and Urid beans are even closer to Mung... So I would think rice beans are in the same group and not much of a problem?

I also noticed some hard beans even after 36 hrs of soaking or so in my Urid beans. I suppose it's more 'primitive' compared to Mung just like rice beans are to Adzuki then?

(How much chance would there be to get Urid to grow in Belgium?)

[zeedman]

Chances are that if you can grow cowpeas (such as black eyed peas), then you can grow urd beans. They require similar conditions, and in my garden, had a similar DTM. The bushes are non-twining, but will probably sprawl. I wish I could tell you more about their usage, but I don't know how they should be prepared. Cooked like any other dry bean, I found them to be less palatable than cowpeas, green gram, or adzuki.

[blueadzuki]

As for success it sort of depends. First and foremost, there are at least two major strains of rice bean on the market. One the commoner one, needs a much longer season than the other (when and if you can post a picture I may be able to work out which you have) You may have some trouble getting that one to flower. I know I can't.

As for the never tasting it, that really isn't so odd. First and foremost, while I LOVE growing beans, I actually am not all that fond of the taste of them. To me the challenge is the point, eating them is incidental. With my bad harvests I really can't afford to spare seed for consumption anyway; all pods are needed for the next year. The only time I eat any pods is at the very end of the year, when I know that the green pods left will not mature before seasons end.

There is also the fact I am more than a little afraid to eat the stuff as it comes out of the bags. There are so many bugs, so much dirt, so many rodent droppings. I worry about getting sick. And the beans are usually dusted with sulfites (to kill the bugs) and too many of those aren't good for you either

As for my own seeds, as of this point I don't have ENOUGH to eat any. All the rice beans I have ever grown probably amount to maybe one or two ounces; far less if you cut it down to those mature enough to be edible.

Based on what I have read, you aren't missing much not tasting the lablabs. They are supposed to be a VERY acquired taste. They certainly don't SMELL like something I'd want to eat when soaked.