Patjuk (Korean Red Bean Porridge)
A homemade patjuk gently sweetened with rice syrup. The red beans are blanched once to remove their natural bitterness, pressure-cooked until soft, blended smooth, and simmered with rice syrup and salt. It's a wholesome sweet red bean porridge with no other additives, letting the natural flavor of the beans shine.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- Red beans (adzuki)1 cup
- Glutinous rice1/2 cup
- Water1 L
Sauce & Seasoning
- Rice syrup (jocheong)1 cup
- SugarA pinch
- Salt1 tsp
Directions
- 1
Wash your hands thoroughly and prepare all the ingredients you need.
- 2
Red beans have a characteristic bitterness, so using them as is can taste harsh. Add the beans to vigorously boiling water and blanch for about 7 minutes.
- 3
Drain the blanched beans in a sieve, rinse them lightly once under running water, then put 1 cup of beans and 1 L of water together in a pressure cooker and start cooking.
- 4
Keep the heat high until the pressure cooker's weight starts to rock, then lower it to medium-low and simmer gently for 40 minutes. The beans should be soft enough to mash easily with your fingers.
- 5
Transfer the well-cooked beans to a pot and bring to a boil with rice syrup, sugar, and salt. If you don't want it very sweet, you can season with just rice syrup and salt.
- 6
A consistency that slowly runs off the spoon is ideal. If it's too thick, add a little water, then blend it lightly once with a hand blender.
- 7
Pass the beans once through a not-too-fine sieve to make the texture even smoother.
- 8
Return it to the pot and simmer gently once more to finish. To make a larger batch, add more water to the porridge and adjust the consistency with glutinous rice flour.
Tips
Blanching the red beans once to remove the bitterness makes for a much cleaner, tastier patjuk. Using rice syrup instead of sugar gives a subtle, refined sweetness and depth of flavor.