Yum, Tapioca.

September 20, 2006 7:24 AM

Does anyone have recommendations for savory southeast-Asian style tapioca recipes?

The last time I was at the Asian grocery, I bought a bag of plain tapioca pearls. Now I don't know what to do with them! I've done some searching for recipes but have only found sweet desserts, and I was hoping to cook something savory instead. I'd love some recommendations for recipes or recipe sites.

posted by miss tea to food & drink (4 comments total)

Hmm... I don't know much about tapioca pearls, but I think they're mainly used for making bubble tea, and not much else.

You could possibly process them somehow to use as a substitute for tapioca flour, but tapioca pearls usually come pre-cooked which means its going to be somewhat different. In any case, I believe the pearls are pretty tasteless (the main reason for adding them to bubble tea is for the chewy texture and not taste), which means you could probably throw them into anything you want.

There's a list of recipes involving tapioca at kuali.com, which is a site full of Malaysian recipes. I'm pretty sure most of them will require you to use the actual tapioca root though.

Have fun!
posted by destrius at 8:02 AM on September 20, 2006

Ahhh. That makes sense, destrius. Thanks!
posted by miss tea at 8:32 AM on September 20, 2006

i'm anything but a culinary expert but it sounds like the same stuff i've had in India known as Sabudana. One i've tried and was partial to was Sabudana Khichdi
posted by boofhead at 9:55 AM on September 20, 2006

I know this isnt savory, but you could try putting them in hot cocoa. I had bubble tea almost every day of the winter when I was in china, and it occurs to me that pearls in hot cocoa would be good times.
posted by BobbyDigital at 10:56 AM on September 20, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]