Korea · 20 min · Vegetarian · Dessert · For beginners
Patbingsu
For 2 servings · US units
Fluffy shaved ice with sweet adzuki beans, fruit and condensed milk
Patbingsu is the Korean shaved ice dessert that gets hot summer days exactly right: a mound of feathery ice, cold fruit, and the sweet adzuki beans (pat) that give the bowl its name. Soft mini mochi rice cakes go on top, along with a dusting of nutty misugaru and a generous drizzle of condensed milk. It comes together in twenty minutes — and it wants to be eaten right away.
Ingredients
- 14⅛ ozice cubesshave finely or crush in a blender; milk ice also possible
- 4 tbspcanned or cooked from scratchSmall red beans cooked soft and thickened with sugar, left whole or mashed to a paste. Sweet, gently nutty, creamy.Substitute: The best option is to cook them yourself from dried adzuki beans with sugar and a pinch of salt; it simply takes longer. Other beans are not a good substitute: kidney beans have thicker skins and a more savoury flavour, and the result turns mealy rather than creamy.Read more
- 2 tbspdrizzle over at the endThickened, heavily sweetened milk, syrupy and caramel-sweet.Substitute: Unsweetened evaporated milk is not a substitute, because it lacks both the sweetness and the thickness. In a pinch it can be simmered slowly with roughly its own weight in sugar until syrupy.Read more
- 3 tbspstore-bought or homemade, cut into small cubesKorean tteok: steamed and pounded rice dough, usually shaped into finger-thick sticks or oval slices. Firmly chewy and mild, not to be confused with puffed rice cakes.Substitute: There is no good substitute. Japanese mochi is made from glutinous rice, turns soft when cooked and melts away. Gnocchi or short thick pasta will carry the sauce but lack the chewy, springy bite these dishes are built around.Read more
- 2¾ ozstrawberriessliced
- 2⅛ ozblueberrieswashed
- 1⅔ ozkiwithinly sliced (optional)
- 1⅔ ozpineapplechopped (optional)
- 2 tbspdust over the ice through a small sieveA fine powder of roasted grains and legumes, usually barley, rice and soybeans, with a nutty, toasty, faintly sweet taste.Substitute: The closest match is a mix of kinako, Japanese roasted soybean flour, and roasted barley flour such as tsampa, in roughly equal parts. Kinako alone tastes noticeably beany and less of grain, while barley flour alone lacks the rounded, sweetish depth; neither quite reaches the layered flavour of the original.Read more
- 5¼ ozonly for homemade rice cakes (optional)Flour ground from glutinous rice, a particularly starchy rice variety; once cooked it turns chewy, elastic and sticky.Substitute: There is no good substitute. Ordinary rice flour or wheat flour will not bind into a chewy, elastic dough, and the result turns crumbly or short; tapioca starch adds some chewiness but is more glassy and tastes different.Read more
- Sugarfor sweetening the beans or rice cake batter (optional)
- honeyfor sweetening home-cooked beans (optional)
- 1 pinchSaltfor beans and rice cakes (optional)
Method
- Chill the bowls and ingredientsPut your serving bowls in the freezer for about 10 minutes and chill all the ingredients well — the colder everything is, the longer the ice stays light and snowy.
- Cook the sweet adzuki beansIf you want to cook the sweet adzuki beans from scratch, sort and rinse them, bring them to a boil for 5 minutes, then drain. Cover with fresh water and simmer gently for about 1 hour until soft, stirring now and then and topping up the water as needed. Stir in salt, sugar and honey, simmer uncovered for another 10 minutes, then cool and refrigerate.
- Make and cube the rice cakesFor homemade rice cakes, whisk the sweet rice flour with sugar, salt and water until smooth, cover and microwave for 2–3 minutes until the mixture turns translucent. Let it rest for 5 minutes, knead for 2–3 minutes, press flat on a floured board and cut into small cubes.
- Prepare the fruit and toppingsWash the fruit: slice the strawberries, drain the blueberries, cut the kiwi into thin slices and chop the pineapple small. Have all the toppings within reach.
- Shave the ice into snowShave or blitz the ice cubes in a shaved ice machine, blender or food processor for about 20 seconds until you have fine, snowy ice. If you like, freeze the ice in a suitable container beforehand and shave it in one block.
- Pile the ice into bowlsPile the shaved ice loosely into the ice-cold bowls without packing it down.
- Dust with misugaruDust the misugaru evenly over the ice through a small sieve.
- Scatter on the toppingsScatter the fruit, sweet adzuki beans and rice cake cubes over the top.
- Drizzle with condensed milkFinish with a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk and serve immediately, while the ice is still fluffy.
Tips and variations
Instead of plain water ice you can shave milk ice, which comes out creamier and milder. For the fruit, a berries-only version with strawberries and blueberries works just as well, and nuts, cookies, matcha powder or a scoop of green tea ice cream all make good extra toppings. The beans can go on as whole sweet adzuki beans or as sweet bean paste, and both the adzuki beans and the rice cakes can be bought ready-made or made entirely from scratch. Patbingsu tastes best straight from the pre-chilled bowls, right after assembling, while the ice is still fluffy.
Allergens
Contains: Cereals containing gluten, Milk (including lactose)
These notes follow from this recipe's ingredient list. Ready-made products and brands may contain further allergens — please check the packaging yourself.
Something not right?
This recipe was put together from independent sources and checked before publishing. Even so, a mistake can slip through — an amount that does not add up, a step that does not work as written. If you spot something, write to us: we will look into it and put it right.
