One of my favorite desserts is a must eat on the first day of the lunar new year. And for Koreans, it is pat chuk. A sweet, delicious red bean soup with soft white rice dumplings. My Mom made some when she was here and I swear I ate the whole pot myself, begrudgingly sharing it with my Dad, sister and Da Man. My kids all took one dutiful bite for luck and ran away. The thing about Asian desserts in general are that they are not overly sweet. So if you are used to eating donuts and cake, Asian desserts are quite understated. But I love them.
So my folks went home and I started missing pat chuk and wishing my Mom would come back and make it for me cause I'm too lazy to make it myself. However, I went to my favorite little Japanese cafe and noticed that they had something called creamy zenzai. The Japanese version of Korean Patchuk.
Copyright by perago 89 via Creative Commons LicenseIt's a warm sweet red bean soup with mochi balls and some vanilla ice cream and I gotta admit, it was pretty good! It wasn't the same as my Mom's which I adore, but for a quick fix, it worked wonderfully. But today the weather was over 50 and the rest of the week is reportedly going to be in the 60s. Which makes me so happy! And with the warm weather, thoughts of my all time favorite Korean dessert patbingsoo crowd my head. Take a look:
Copyright mikeswe via Creative Commons LicenseLooks weird huh? You must be wondering what it is. It is the sweet red bean sauce over shaved ice, condensed milk, rice cakes and fruit. Sometimes there is some ice cream on top. I prefer it without. I love the way the red bean sauce and the ice and sweet condensed milk all mix together into this soupy goodness. And I can get it over at my favorite little Korean cafe nearby. I think I'm going to go have some tomorrow.
It looks like fruit salad-but then I'm no gourmet.
ReplyDeleteThese desserts are very interesting. Traditional deserts over here tend to be quite heavy. Spotted Dick and Custard anyone?
ReplyDeleteYummy stuff. Koreans seem to like to put Green Tea in everything too. Green tea ice cream, green tea donuts, green tea gum...
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose there is any chance of getting your mom's recipe?
ReplyDeleteI love desserts with fruit in them! I have a big ole sweet tooth, these pictures are making me hungry...
ReplyDeleteOh wow -- those look good!
ReplyDeleteThose look good (& they sound a whole lot better than calamari flavored ice cream. *L*)
ReplyDeleteEllo, I love just about everything Japanese and Korean with the exception of this soup. I love sweet beans, but I find this soup such a huge blast of sugar that I can't take it. Every year friends used to forget how much I hated it and make me a big batch of it. And every year I had to suffer my way through an obligatory couple of sips. And once, in Pusan, a really sweet girl at a cafe treated me to a big, huge sweet bean sundae topped with shaved ice and some kind of hideous blue syrup...
ReplyDeleteWish you could have been there!!
chinese ppl have a red bean soup with rice balls thing too that my mom makes. it's sooo good.
ReplyDeleteand. I LOVE PATBINGSOO!!!! there's this place i used to go to that put cornflakes on it. weird but GOOD bc it adds an extra texture.
i love asian desserts bc they're light and not overly sweet. i dont like feeling like i gained 10 lbs after eating dessert. rich desserts are nice for a quick fix but i'm a big fan of the fluffy light cakes that the japanese make. num num. asian desserts in general i find so much more desirable.
Probably because it's not chocolate, it doesn't look all that delicious to me. But I'll take your word for it.
ReplyDeletePatbingsoo looks delicious (and refreshing) to me since I only like "natural" sweet. Enjoy, Ello.
ReplyDeleteLooks different . . . and tasty. I love trying new desserts.
ReplyDeleteIn my head the words 'bean' and 'dessert' just don't go together!
ReplyDeleteI've never tried any asian desserts - I'm usually too stuffed after guzzling the starters and the mains!
oh MAN. you're EVIL.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to disagree with you on the red been desserts not being overly sweet. One of the sweetest things I've ever tried was a mochi ball with a red bean paste filling. I could barely eat it is was so sweet! And I'm one of those people who would eat chocolate for every meal if I could.
ReplyDeleteFunny, how your kids won't try more than a bite! That's just like my kiddos and Indian sweets. My mother-in-law, meanwhile, refuses to have any American deserts - she thinks they all have eggs (or worse) ... she's vegetarian.
ReplyDeleteI'm not gonna lie. That looks kind of nasty to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I'm hungry. I think we need a rule: no dessert posts while people are in submissions. ;)
ReplyDeletei'm all for the fruit compote, but the beans leave me cold... tho am willing to taste test
ReplyDeleteso delicious! my korean roomie and friend used to make sweet potatoes for me. i'm pretty sure that's what it was. and it was so delicious! like bite sized chunks of it!
ReplyDeletePhew.
ReplyDeleteLucky I'm at home today.
The public library is no place to be seen licking a monitor.
Yeah, I love the shave ice with ice cream, fruit, and the azuki bean. Good stuff.
ReplyDeletehere's the new blog rule - if you're going to tease us with pictures of fabulous food you have to include the recipe!
ReplyDeleteHere I was, visiting all my blogging buddies and minding my own business and what do I run into? A post about food!
ReplyDeleteNow even though I had my breakfast an hour ago, just looking at the pictures and reading about the deserts I got hungry.
Unfortunately, the choices in my safe house room are limited. I settled for a can of herring.
Anyway, I think the Thais might be the exception on sweet Asian deserts. Some of their deserts are so sweet even a Westerner can find them difficult to eat.
YUMMMMMM!!!!! Those desserts look so refreshing!
ReplyDeleteFormer roommates of mine were Asian, and they cooked a lot. Not Korean though. Indonesian, Thai, and Chinese. Their desserts were yummy too! I think they had an unwritten competition to see which food I ate the most of. Let me tell you, I was fair and spread the love.
:-)
like i said, am willing to taste test... almost anything ;)
ReplyDeleteMmmm, my favorite sushi restaurant in Brooklyn has this red bean cake dessert...it's seriously the most delicious thing in the world. And like you said, it's very light and not too sweet.
ReplyDeleteI'll be sure to take a photo of it next time I go...definitely don't want a repeat of the eggnog french toast which you were SOO MAD ABOUT! ;0) Every time I eat something good now, I think to myself: Do I need to photograph this?