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Danpatjuk (Sweet Red Bean Porridge)
4.7 from 105 votes

Danpatjuk (Sweet Red Bean Porridge)

Danpatjuk is a Korean sweet porridge made from soft-cooked adzuki beans pureed into a smooth, velvety base and sweetened with sugar and honey. It features chewy rice cake balls made from glutinous rice flour and is often garnished with pine nuts, chestnuts, or cinnamon. The porridge has a sweet, comforting flavor and a rich texture.

Servings: 4
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: Asian, Korean

Ingredients

For the porridge
  • 1 cup adzuki beans aka pat, 팥
  • 1 tablespoon glutinous rice flour Chapssal garu (찹쌀가루) or mochiko, aka sweet rice powder
  • 2 tablespoons sugar or light brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon honey use more sugar to taste if unavailable
  • ½ teaspoon salt
For the rice cake balls
  • 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour Chapssal garu (찹쌀가루) or mochiko, aka sweet rice powder
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 4 tablespoons water boiling hot
Optional garnish
  • 1 tablespoon pine nuts
  • 4 to 6 chestnuts boiled or canned
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

Instructions

For the porridge
    Cup of Yum
  1. Discard broken or rotten beans and rinse the beans. In a large pot, add the beans with 4 cups of water. Bring it to a boil, uncovered, over medium high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and boil for 5 minutes.
  2. Drain the beans.
  3. Return the beans to the pot with 4 cups of fresh water. Cover, and simmer over medium low heat until the beans are very soft and easily breakable, about 1 to 1-½ hours. Turn off the heat, and let the beans cool in the cooking liquid.
  4. Puree the beans along with the cooking liquid until velvety smooth. You may need to do this step in two batches. Add some water if the bean puree gets too thick.
  5. Return the bean puree to the pot. Mix one tablespoon of the sweet rice powder in ½ cup of water, and pour into the pot. Stir in the salt, sugar and honey.
  6. Simmer over medium low heat, uncovered, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes. Adjust the thickness of the porridge by adding more water if necessary.
For the rice cake balls
  1. Mix the rice powder, sugar and salt in a bowl. Stir in the boiling hot water with a spoon. When cool enough to handle, knead by hand until a dough is formed. Shape the dough into a 3/4-inch thick cylinder.
  2. Cut into (or pinch off) 3/4-inch pieces. Roll each piece between the palms to make a small ball.
  3. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the rice cake balls. Cook until all the balls float. Transfer to a large bowl with cold water to cool. Drain.
To serve:
  1. Ladle some porridge into a serving bowl. Serve hot with a few rice balls and optional garnishes.