While the sun beats against your back and the sweat beads trickle down your forehead in hot summer days, there’s no better way to alleviate yourself of the cruel heat than a cold treat. This time forget about your green apple sorbet or pistachio ice cream because today we will talk about Korean shaved ice dessert – patbingsu, the ultimate go-to summer delight. It’s more refreshing, lighter, and fruitier than other ice treats!

There are as many bingsu recipes as there are ice cream recipes. Listing all the tastes will be impossible! You can make bingsu in so many ways with different toppings and flavors so that your kids or your childish personal side can have much fun making it.

Making patbingsu at home is pretty easy, but before we get to how to make the best ice cold homemade patbingsu, let’s see what history hides behind this delicious Korean dessert!

The origins of Patbingsu Korean Shaved Ice

Bing comes from the Chinese symbol for ice and Su comes from a symbol for water. First record of Koreans storing and using ice dates back as far as 1396 during Joseon dynasty. Two large ice storages were built on the east and west side of Seoul to provide ice for the palace offices including individual high-level officials. From there, ice was rationed out according to rankings and time of year. To this day you will see that two areas in Seoul are called Dongbinggo Dong and Seobinggo Dong. That’s where these huge ice storages were located in the past.

A fun fact about this is that there was a special governing office called Naebinggo. Its only task was to manage the storage and inventory of ice stored at these locations. If the time was still before the middle of fall, and there was no ice left in storage for the royal chef to use in his kitchen, then the person appointed by the King who oversaw ice storage was punished for mismanagement. So, aren’t you glad, you can use as much ice as you want these days? The things we take for granted.

You may wonder – Where did the ice come from? During the freezing Korean winter, huge ice blocks were cut and harvested from the frozen Han River. Then, the ice blocks were transported and stored at these two storage locations to last through the hot summer months.

Finally, you may wonder about the first historical trace of bingsu? Records are mentioning the workers at Dongbinggo and Seobinggo who sometimes made fruit punch using crushed ice from bits of ice leftover after delivery.

How to make Korean shaved ice dessert patbingsu at home?

The patbingsu consists of crushed ice covered with sweet red bean paste, all embellished with tteok (rice paste cakes). In fact, the combination of red bean pastes and shaved ice is known to be a Korean invention. Nowadays Koreans are very proud of their national dessert! Popular ingredients of patbingsu include fruit cocktail, whipped cream, ice cream, green tea powder, and maraschino cherries. Many patbingsu today do not include the famous red bean paste, which must be due to the changing taste of the consumer.

The most important ingredient in a basic patbingsu recipe is the beans. You can purchase canned sweetened bean in Korean/Asian markets, or you can cook them at home. Cooking them is quite easy but you’ll need to cook them slowly for about 2 hours. The beans need to be soft and moderately sweet.

Korean shaved ice dessert recipe

Ingredients:

For the beans:

• 1 pound of dried pat
• (azuki beans), about 2 cups
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1/3 cup of honey
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

For the rice cake:

• 3/4 cup of sweet rice powder
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Preparation

1. Rinse the beans and add them into 4 cups of water. Cook uncovered over medium heat. When it starts boiling, reduce the heat and cook for 5 min.
2. Drain the beans.
3. Return the beans into the pot and pour in 4 cups of fresh water. Cook over medium heat for 50 minutes. At that point, the liquid should have almost evaporated. Add 2 cups of water and continue to simmer for about 30 to 40 minutes, covered. Add 2 more cups of water and continue to simmer, for another 40 to 50 minutes. Gently stir from time to time to make sure the beans are not sticking at the bottom. Add more water if needed.

 

1. Stir in the salt, sugar, and honey. Continue to simmer for about 30 minutes, uncovered this time. Gently stir. Add more water if necessary. Transfer the beans to a container and cool.

You can keep it in the fridge up to a week. Thin it with cold water, when you are ready to use it again.

For the rice cake:

1. Combine the sweet sugar, salt, and rice powder. Mix it well with a whisk. Add water and mix again.
2. Put in a microwave for 2 minutes. Remove from the microwave. Let it sit for 5 minutes. Knead with a spoon for 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Dust the cutting board with 1-2 tablespoons of corn starch.
4. Flatten rice cakes with your hands. Form the rectangles and cut them into 1/2 to 3/4- inch strips. Wet the knife and cut each strip into 3/4 inch cubes. Dust the cut parts of the cake pieces with the corn starch to prevent from sticking.
5. All the ingredients must be cold before shaving the ice. Shave the ice and add 2 to 3 tablespoons of the red beans. Drizzle with a tablespoon of condensed milk. Top it with a rice cake pieces and your favorite ice cream, fruit pieces, or any other toppings.

Is Patbingsu vegan?

Patbingsu in its simplest form is made of beans, rice cake and condensed milk, and of course -ice. Koreans typically drizzle condensed milk over bingsu to flavor the ice, but leave it out if you want, or use vegan condensed milk instead. You can make homemade vegan condensed milk by simmering the soy milk powder with some coconut sugar over medium to low heat for 20 to 30 minutes or until it’s reduced by half.

Otherwise, you can miss condensed milk and use only vegan-friendly ingredients

Vegan Korean Patbingsu

Ingredients /1-2 servings

• ½ cup of strawberries
• ½ of yellow mango
• 1 kiwi
• ½ cup of frozen pineapple bits
• 30 g bingsu rice cake
• 2 tablespoons red beans (sweetened and mashed)
• 1 block ice or 20 ice cubes
• 2 frozen bananas

Preparation

1. Prepare the syrup and let chia seeds soak in water for 10-15 minutes. Blend the raspberries, strawberries, and maple syrup. Then add the chia seeds. Set syrup aside.

2. Cut the fruits in small pieces.

3. Let ice thaw for several minutes.

4. Blend the ice and place it in a bowl.

5. Top with the red beans, add the fruits and rice cakes.

6. If adding banana ice cream, blend frozen bananas and add to bowl.

7. Drizzle your patbingsu with syrup!

Do you need a shaved ice machine to make Patbingsu?

Although a home shave ice machine makes the job much easier, you don’t have to have a professional Korean shaved ice machine at home to make a perfect Korean shaved ice.

Here are three possible methods to “grate” ice without a shaved ice machine:

1. Put the bag flat on the work board and, using a roll of pastry, tap-roll over to crush the ice. Repeat the process until you get more or less fine crumbs.
2. Remove the bag or container and place the ice on the knife board. Using a large knife, cut very thin slices of ice, while moving (looking for the softened place). Collect the slices in your cups and keep in the cold while you finish all the ice cream.
3. 3 Remove the bag or container and place the ice on the knife board. Using a large knife, cut the ice into pieces no larger than 2 or 3 cm. (Watch out your fingers from the knife, as ice is slippery. In the beginning, poke the ice with the knife end to break the large mass, the smaller pieces will be easier to cut with the knife.). You can also use a compartmentalized ice tray; the ice is already in pieces. Mix them in the blender. If you have to mix several times, keep the ice cream cold until you finish.

The grated ice should not be “compacted”, pack it very lightly in the cup so that it does not take up too much space and leave it rather airy. The ice will be the color of the liquid you froze and after blending, you can simply put the ice in a glass, or you can use a fancy bowl. You can also fill it above the edges (if it’s thick enough) in form of a mountain if you really want to make it look impressive. Then you can pour syrup or some other flavor over it to add more color/taste.

The Most Popular Varieties of Bingsu

There is almost an infinite variety of bingsu styles. You may find fruit, mango, watermelon, melon, peach, strawberry and more. There is also “healthy” bingsu with jujube, almonds or pumpkin. Pumpkin bingsu is supposed to replace a meal! There are also fancy tastes based on Oreo, caramel, cookies and so on. Just about all existing sweets can potentially be the garnish.

Koreans have declined patbingsu with many ingredients. We obtain dozens of varieties of bingsu, among which the best known are nokcha-bingsu (green tea), coffee-bingsu, choco-bingsu, subak-bingsu (watermelon), cheongpodo-mojito-bingsu (Chardonnay, lemon, and mint), peotkkot-bingsu (with cherry blossoms), injeolmi-bingsu (with rice balls) or tiramisu-bingsu. A different container is used for each variety of bingsu.

There are also bingsu that stand out as much for their taste as for their presentation. Among the most popular bingsu in this genre are, for example, bingsu ‘Skein’ composed of silk or bingsu cacao and its pronounced taste of chocolate.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization, Koreans eat patbingsu with “friends, families, coworkers, and lovers,”. It’s not a solitary dessert like an ice cream cone, but a big bowl meant as an arena for spoons to go “tteok hunting.” A piece of advice: The ideal number of eaters per patbingsu bowl is two.

Keep patbingsu in mind the next time you’re melting from the heat, or if you’re one of those people that loves ice cream in the winter, this can be a year-round dessert. The ice mountain landscape dotted with tteok, red beans, and other tiny morsels is a kind of dessert bibimbap, one that any lover of halo-halo or shaved ice can relate to.

As much as you love eating ice cream in the summer heat, sometimes it’s too much of a good, dairy-rich thing. Patbingsu is a cool and satisfying dessert that’s substantial without being rich, and with all its different components it won’t bore your taste buds.

Syrup Recipe Ideas

Cherry Homemade Syrup

Ingredients

1 Cup of pitted Cherries

1 Cup of Sugar

1 Cup of Water

Cherry Vanilla Natural Shaved Ice Syrup

Ingredients

1 Cup of pitted Cherries

1 Cup of Sugar

1 Cup of Water

2 Tbsp of Homemade Vanilla Extract

Cranberry Shaved Ice Syrup

Ingredients

2 1/2 Cups of Cranberries

1 Cup of Sugar

1 Cup of Water

Preparation:

Bring sugar and water to boil in small saucepan on medium heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in all the ingredients and return on medium until it starts boiling again. Cool to room temperature. Pour into a squeeze bottle for easier serving. Pour syrup over shaved ice.

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The beauty of patbingsu lies in the freedom to tailor each bowl to your tastes. Love tteok? Dump it on! Hate fruit cocktail? Don’t need it! Fresh fruit? Hell yeah! So, take the ingredients for your slushy fantasies and let us know the successful combinations you come up with!

You’re welcome to share your recipes in photo or simply your favorite tastes!

 

 

References:

1. https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/08/how-to-make-patbingsu-korean-shaved-ice-recipe.html
2. https://mykoreankitchen.com/patbingsu-korean-shaved-ice/