Hobak-juk (호박죽) is Korean pumpkin porridge: kabocha squash cooked until it collapses, puréed smooth, thickened with sweet rice and finished with small chewy rice balls and a few red beans.

It is naturally sweet, pale gold and soft enough to eat with a spoon and no teeth at all, which is exactly why Koreans have long made it for the old, the sick and anyone recovering from a cold winter day.

It takes about an hour. Most of that is the pumpkin softening on its own.

The porridge Koreans make for someone

Juk, Korean porridge, is the food of care. It is what a Korean mother makes when a child has a fever, what a family brings to someone home from the hospital, what an elderly grandparent eats when chewing is hard. Rice juk with abalone, pine-nut juk, red bean juk: each has its place.

Hobak-juk sits among them as the gentle, sweet one. It has long been made for patients and older people, since it is easy to digest and filling without weight. It is also a winter comfort, made in late autumn when the pumpkins come in and kept in the refrigerator to warm up by the bowl.

The pumpkin itself was a storage crop in Korea, as elsewhere. A whole ripe pumpkin keeps for months in a cool corner, so it was one of the foods that saw households through the cold season. How Korean kitchens change for winter describes the larger habit of cooking from what keeps.

Which pumpkin

Korean recipes use a few kinds of squash, and the choice changes the porridge.

Kabocha (danhobak, 단호박). The small, dark green Japanese-type squash, dense and very sweet with dry, chestnut-like flesh. It is a common choice in Korean homes now and gives the deepest color and flavor.

Neulgeun hobak (늙은호박). The large, ripe, tan pumpkin, literally “old pumpkin,” left on the vine until fully mature. It is the traditional choice, wetter and milder, and gives a lighter porridge.

Butternut squash. A good substitute outside Korea. It is sweet, purées smoothly and is easier to peel than kabocha.

Avoid jack-o’-lantern pumpkins. They are bred for carving and are stringy and watery.

The rice: slurry, balls, or both

What makes hobak-juk a porridge rather than a soup is sweet rice, the glutinous kind, and Korean cooks add it in one of two ways.

A slurry. Sweet rice flour is whisked into cold water and stirred into the simmering purée. It thickens the whole pot evenly and gives the smoothest texture.

Saealsim (새알심). Small balls of sweet rice dough, literally “bird’s-egg centers” for their size, are dropped into the porridge to cook. They turn chewy and translucent, and they are the part children fish for.

Many households use both: a little slurry for body, a handful of rice balls for texture. The same small rice balls go into patjuk, the red bean porridge eaten on the winter solstice, so a Korean cook who makes one makes the other.

How to make it

Serves 4.

The pumpkin. Take about 2 pounds of kabocha. Pierce it in a few places and microwave it whole for 2 to 3 minutes; that softens the skin enough to cut safely. Halve it, scoop out the seeds, and cut it into wedges. Peel the green skin with a sharp knife, then cut the flesh into 1-inch chunks.

The cook. Put the pumpkin in a pot with 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until a chopstick goes through with no resistance.

The purée. Blend the pumpkin and its cooking water until completely smooth, with a stick blender in the pot or in batches in a blender. Return it to the pot.

The rice balls. While the pumpkin cooks, mix 1/2 cup of sweet rice flour with a pinch of salt and add about 3 to 4 tablespoons of hot water, a spoonful at a time, kneading until the dough is smooth and holds together like soft clay. Roll it into balls the size of a hazelnut.

The slurry. Whisk 1/4 cup of sweet rice flour into 1/2 cup of cold water until there are no lumps.

Finish. Bring the purée back to a simmer. Drop in the rice balls and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring gently, until they float and turn glossy. Stir in the slurry and keep stirring for 3 to 4 minutes as the porridge thickens; sweet rice sticks to the bottom of the pot if it is left alone. Season with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar or honey, to taste. A good kabocha may need almost none.

To serve. Ladle into bowls and top with a spoonful of cooked red adzuki beans, a few pine nuts, and if you have them, thin slices of dried jujube.

How it keeps

Refrigerate hobak-juk within 2 hours of cooking and eat it within a few days; the CDC advises reheating leftovers to 165°F. It thickens as it cools; loosen it with a splash of water when reheating. The rice balls firm up overnight and soften again in the heat.

It is also good cold, especially in a heated apartment in January, when a cool, sweet bowl after dinner works as dessert.

Where it fits

Hobak-juk is not a party dish. It is what gets made for one person on a cold afternoon, or in a large pot on Sunday to last a few days. In Korea it is sold at porridge shops and in the refrigerated aisle of supermarkets.

For a fuller Korean winter table, it sits well beside haejangguk, the savory beef soup, as the sweet, soft counterpoint.

The short version

Hobak-juk is Korean pumpkin porridge, traditionally made for the sick and the elderly and eaten all winter as comfort food. Kabocha is the usual pumpkin now; the large ripe “old pumpkin” is the traditional one, and butternut is a good substitute.

The pumpkin is simmered and puréed, then thickened with sweet rice flour and finished with chewy rice balls called saealsim. Red beans and pine nuts go on top. It takes about an hour and keeps for a few days in the refrigerator.

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WONAMU. makes a bamboo cutting board designed for daily prep, 12 × 9 inches, bamboo, with a perimeter juice groove. Available on Amazon.

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