Desserts & Drinks
Patjuk (Red Bean Porridge)
Prep
20 min
Cook
90 min
Servings
4
Photo: KOREA.NET - Official page of the Republic of Korea · CC BY-SA 2.0
Steps
- 1
Rinse the beans, cover with water, bring to a boil and boil 5 minutes.
- 2
Drain that water off completely and discard it.
- 3
Return the beans to the pot with 8 cups fresh water and simmer 60-70 minutes until they collapse easily.
- 4
Mash or blend the beans, and push them through a sieve if you want a smooth porridge.
- 5
Add the soaked rice and simmer 20-30 minutes, stirring often, until the rice breaks down.
- 6
Meanwhile mix glutinous rice flour with hot water into a firm dough and roll pea-sized balls.
- 7
Drop the rice balls in for the last 5 minutes and cook until they float.
- 8
Season with salt, and add sugar at the table rather than in the pot.
Did you know — Korean culture
Patjuk is not really a dessert in Korea, it is a calendar. It is eaten at Dongji, the winter solstice, because red was believed to drive off bad spirits, and porridge the colour of red beans was thought to keep them out of the house through the darkest night of the year. In the older version of the custom, you ate one small rice ball for each year of your age.
Draining the first boil is not optional. Red beans carry compounds that read as harsh and slightly bitter, and that first five minutes pulls them out. Pour that water away, start again with fresh, and the finished porridge tastes clean and sweet rather than tannic. It is the same logic as the parboil in a good galbitang.
How smooth patjuk should be is a genuine preference. Some cooks mash roughly and leave the porridge rustic with whole beans in it; others push everything through a sieve for a silky texture. Both are correct, but decide before you add the rice, because sieving a porridge that already has rice in it is miserable work.
The rice balls are the part people get wrong. They need only a few minutes and they go in at the very end. Added early they dissolve into the porridge and thicken it into paste, taking their chewy contrast with them. In they go when the porridge is otherwise finished, and they are done the moment they float.
Troubleshooting
Porridge tasting bitter or astringent? You kept the first boiling water. Discard it and start the long simmer with fresh water.
Rice balls dissolved? They went in too early. They need 5 minutes at the very end, not 30.
Porridge too thick after sitting? Normal - it sets as it cools. Loosen with hot water and re-warm, stirring.