Thanks to all the encouragement from other bloggers, this is my first attempt at making tapioca pearls.
It was so easy. You only need tapioca flour, boiling water and some food coloring. I did not have any measurements in hand though. All based on my own judgement. I knew that it must have the same texture like soft dough so that’s what I was going at.
I dumped half packet of flour into a wide bowl. Pour boiling water by tablespoons and on the other hand continue to mix the flour and water briskly. Immediately soft dough will form. If it is too sticky, add more flour. It cannot be too dry either or else it will fall apart and won’t stick when you roll them.
First, shape the dough into long cylinders then cut them into 1 cm length or lesser. Take the cut dough and roll them until it forms a ball.
For the next batch I boiled some water and add coloring before pouring the colored water into the tapioca flour.
After you have formed the balls, boil more water and drop the balls into the boiling water. The balls will sink to the bottom and rise when cooked. Immediately take them out and put the cooked balls into cold water. In my experiment I used icy cold water with ice cubes floating inside the bowl.
The moment the balls hit the icy cold water, this is when something of interest happens-they slowly turn translucent.
There you go…adzuki bean soup with tapioca pearls…chewy and YUM.
The cooked balls can be kept in the fridge for a few days. After some time in the fridge the balls will harden You will need to reboil them to get them chewy again.