This popular, delicious porridge (juk: 죽 in Korean) is made from dried azuki beans (pat: 팥 in Korean) with added chewy rice cake balls made from glutinous rice flour. The porridge is creamy, nutty, and a little sweet.
The texture of the mashed beans is similar to Mexican refried beans, but thinner. I was surprised when I went to Mexico and tasted their frijole porridge, it was very similar to Korean patjuk!
This recipe is actually pretty simple. It’s just a few ingredients, but every household makes it differently. Traditionally Koreans eat it on winter solstice (dongjitnal: 동짓날 in Korean), which marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. After the solstice, the days get longer and the nights shorter, so Koreans see it as a “little new year’s day” and something to celebrate. We wish our families and neighbors a happy, successful, and safe year to come by making this special red bean porridge for them.
In Korea, red bean porridge is served year-round as a popular snack or one-bowl meal, but the rice cake balls make this special for dongjitnal. It’s delicious, but also has a lot of symbolism.
The white rice cake balls look like small birds’ eggs and symbolize new life, freshness, and prosperity. They are a little smaller than quail eggs and celebrate the longer days to come.
Koreans believe that the color red wards off evil spirits, so this red porridge wishes good luck for the new year. My grandmother used to smear some porridge on her front door for good measure, and many people would leave a little bowl of it in front of their houses. Go away, evil spirits!
This special porridge is meant to be shared with friends, family, and neighbors. When I was a kid, my mom used to send me out to deliver some of her dongji-patjuk to the neighbors, bowl by bowl, on winter solstice. And the neighbors’ kids brought dongji-patjuk to our house, too. Everyone’s house in the neighborhood would be full of porridge and well-wishes for the upcoming year.
I continued the tradition after I grew up and got married, sending my kids out with porridge on winter solstice.I think it’s a wonderful, warm tradition to be shared with my family and the community.
The video was shot a few weeks ago, and while editing it, my mouth was watering! Tomorrow is winter solstice day, so I’m making a huge pot of dongji-patjuk tonight. I’m not sure my neighbors in New York City will like this traditional Korean porridge, but if I tell them it will give them good luck in the upcoming year in a very delicious way, I’m sure they’ll be happy to try it out! : )
Ingredients (4 servings)
- 1 cup dried azuki beans
- 2½ cups plus 1 tablespoon glutinous rice flour
- 1 cup boiling water
- kosher salt
- sugar
- water
Directions
You can use a pressure cooker or just a regular pot to prepare the beans for the porridge. The goal is the same: make the beans soft enough to mash. Once the beans are prepared, make your rice cake balls and then put it all together!
Soften the red beans in a pressure cooker
- Add the beans and 8 cups of water to the cooker. Set your pressure cooker to the porridge making function. It should take about 1½ hours to cook.
Soften the red beans in a pot
- Wash the red beans and strain. Put them in a large pot with 10 cups of water.
- Boil over medium high heat for 30 minutes. Turn down the heat to low and cook for another 1½ hours until the beans are very tender and mashable. If the beans are still hard, add more water and cook longer.
- Let cool for 20-30 minutes
Mash the red beans
- Set a coarse strainer over a large bowl. Pour the cooked beans and the water into the strainer. Mash the beans with a wooden spoon so that the beans go through the strainer and the skins stay in the strainer.
- Squeeze the bean skins with your hands and discard.
- Put the bean mixture into the pot. If there are less than 8 cups’ worth, add water to make it up to 8 cups.
Make rice cake balls
- Put 2 cups of glutinous rice flour, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the boiling water and mix it well with a wooden spoon. When it cools enough to touch, knead the dough with your hand for 1 minute and put it in a plastic bag. Let it sit for 20 minutes.
- Knead the dough again for a couple of minutes until smooth. If it’s too sticky, add 1 to 2 more tablespoons of glutinous rice flour.
- Take some of the dough in your palms and roll it into a ½ inch ball. Repeat to make rice cake balls out of all the dough, about 55-60 balls. Sprinkle some glutinous rice flour over them as you go so they don’t stick to each other.
Put it all together
- Stir the bean mixture and bring it to a boil over medium high heat. Add the rice cake balls and stir them in well. Cover and let it cook for 8 to 10 minutes until all the rice cake balls float to the surface.
- Mix ½ cup glutinous rice flour and 1 cup of water in a mixing bowl and pour it into the boiling porridge, stirring with a wooden spoon. The porridge will thicken a bit.
- Add 2 teaspoons salt and stir well.
Serve
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I know this recipe is older and idk if anybody will see this, but I’ve tried to make this 2 times already, and I feel like the rice cake balls are not firming up, and the porridge is turning into goop. It’s like they’re dissolving, and the balls are just like the dough, but hot. I don’t want to eat raw dough, I’m so confused.
I experience the same (with my mom’s recipe). I want to keep the thinner texture of the porridge/soup w/out the rice balls creating an ultra thick texture. My solution is to boil the balls in another pot of water and then when it’s cooked through, I add it to the porridge and let it cook for about a minute or so. That way you’ll have rice balls that are cooked through but the porridge texture is not overly thick. Good luck.
It happens when the rice cake dough is too wet. “Knead the dough again for a couple of minutes until smooth. If it’s too sticky, add 1 to 2 more tablespoons of glutinous rice flour.”
And be sure to add the rice cake balls to hot boiling porridge. If the temperature is not hot enough, the rice cake balls will easily melt. Good luck!
Happy Winter Solstice from my home to yours :) I hope we can all sharpen our skills and cook lots of delicious new food in the coming year!
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You added some sugar to your patjuk! Great!
Made a double batch today to bring to friends and family tomorrow for the solstice. The recipe was easy to follow and made a very delicious soup that tasted half like a soup and half like a dessert. :) I’m respectfully putting a bowl outside my door to ward off the 2020 demons and warmly welcome 2021. Thanks again for all your recipes!!! :)
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“I’m respectfully putting a bowl outside my door to ward off the 2020 demons and warmly welcome 2021.” Great! Happy new year!
Thank you for this wonderfull recipe❤! Really wanted To make something in the winter solstice tradition and it is just the perfect meal! I did put a bowl outside my front door❄! Have a wonderfull winter solstice time☃️
“I did put a bowl outside my front door.” That’s awesome! : )
Is it possible to make the rice cakes with regular rice flour ? my family bought me regular instead of glutinous
Is this supposed to taste salty? I think I messed up making this because mine is way too salty. I did use pink salt instead of kosher salt because that’s all I have. Can I salvage this somehow? Or was it supposed to taste salty?
I made this patjuk today. It is delicious! Thank you so much for sharing.
My rice balls are kind of grainy. Is this normal? It seems like the texture near the outside of the ball is soft and creamy but they are more grainy texture in the middle. Is this normal? Are they underhydrated? Maybe undercooked?
Thank you for the suggestion to enjoy with kimchi—that’s a great, unexpected pairing.
:)
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It looks wonderful! 5 cute balls in a bowl, it looks so good!
If the middle part is a little grainy, it means they are undercooked. Lower the heat and simmer until all the rice cakes are well cooked and tender. You may need to add a little water, too.
Hello Maangchi. Maybe stupid question, do i need to boil adzuki at all before cooking the whole porridge ? I let them in water overnight and they’re soft enough to mush.
Can i just mush them cold ?
Thank you
It’s not stupid :) But the recipe says you will cook them for 30 min before the whole porridge. This will make the texture right–I think if you just soaked them, the consistency wouldn’t come out the same. Boiling helps the skins come off as well.
Happy New Year! I know I’m saying this so late. I need to ask you a question about the ddeok. I tried to mix the sweet rice flour with the 1 cup of hot water but it keeps turning to mush. It doesn’t come out like the ddeok in your video. What am I doing wrong? I tried to dry the mixture out by putting more flour but it’s still too watery; it turned from a sort of white rice stew to a rice paste but it won’t turn into ddeok. :(
I don’t think you are supposed to use sweet rice flour because it is glutinous rice flour and it makes a lot of difference!
Happy Winter Solstice, Maangchi and Happy New Year! I just tried this red bean porridge today and it came out amazing! So delicious! Thank you, Maangchi! It reminded me of when I was a child and would have a bowl of porridge with a little brown sugar on a cold winter day, but tastes even better with the turbinado sugar. Happy Holidays Maangchi and everyone! Here’s a photo I took of my bowl. Yummy!!!
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Happy Holidays to you and your family, too! Your patjuk looks so delicious! “It reminded me of when I was a child and would have a bowl of porridge with a little brown sugar on a cold winter day,” : )
Thank you for your reply.
Hello Maangchi,
I am following you for past one year through YouTube, I really like your dishes. The bad thing is I can’t find proper ingredients here in India and online deliveries are also not available in my hometown. In this recipe can I use kidney beans in place of red beans? I am a hardcore vegetarian, I will appreciate if you share some main course vegetarian dises also. Thank you I really enjoy Korean cooking.
You could use any types of beans but you should boil them until they crush easily.
In my culture we also have a sweet been porrige called habichuelas con dulce :) Im mix with chinese and dominican to my surprise both cultures have similarities. So cool! This looks so yummy.
oh thats looks sooooo tasty but i cant eat it i have sensitivity from beans what should i doooooo !!!!
안녕하세요!
I discovered Korean cuisine not so long ago and already tried few dishes and can’t wait for more! I fell in love with it!
Here, in Poland, Korean cuisine is not so popular. Actually, it’s not popular at all and that makes me sad, especially because it’s really hard to find many basic ingredients. And that’s why I’m so glad I found about your site – You often show how to make some ingredients yourself, at home (like rice flour) and also offer some replecements, so I can still make Korean dishes here. I also like that you always put names for dishes in Korean – I appreciate it, because I started learning Korean few months ago.
I’m really thankful for your hard work and please, keep it up! You’re amazing!
I’m your fan, Maangchi!
Welcome to my Korean cooking! I found 2 Korean stores in Poland submitted by my Polish readers. https://www.maangchi.com/shopping/poland Good luck with your Korean cooking!
Unfortunatly, both stores are far away from my hometown (the closest is about 260 km away), so I won’t be able to shop there too often (but maybe I’ll go there for a trip one day!), but even so, I think I’ll be able to find some substitutions, if needed. Your recipes are just great in any possible way!
http://shinhan-mall.de/de/ – the contact information is still wrong, you get the right one here: http://shinhan-mall.de/ko/
They send to Poland, too.
Wow, thank you very, very much! Will use it for sure :)
Hi Maangchi!
My husband and I made this two days ago and it was delicious! This was our first adventure in making Korean food and I have ingredients for Kimchi on order thanks to your online grocery store listing. Your written directions and video were easy to follow and I’m excited to try more. Have a Happy New Year!
Debi and Ricardo
Hi Debi and Ricardo,
I’m happy to hear that you made delicious patjuk and that my recipes are helpful. Good luck in 2016 with your Korean cooking!
Hi Maangchi!
I made your red bean porridge as my contribution to our family’s winter solstice celebration. This was my first time making red bean porridge and it turned out very delicious! My youngest brother’s wife and her sister especially, really loved it and in fact had it the next day for lunch!
As always, thank you for sharing your wonderful recipes and stories with us! 고맙습니다~^^
Dave
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Dave!
Thank you so much for sharing this photo! I just counted the rice cake balls. 66 balls are right? “my contribution to our family’s winter solstice celebration..” LOL! I’d like to meet all your family someday!
Haha! 66! That’s right! Making this is a labor of love and well worth the effort when you see your family enjoying it! Thank you Maangchi~ I would love for you to meet my family someday! I want to wish you & your family and all my fellow Maangchi fans a 메리 크리스마스/Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Dave