Chilled Coconut Milk with Tapioca Pearls and Fresh Fruit
Chilled Coconut Milk with Tapioca Pearls and Fresh Fruit
Soup Name:
Chilled Coconut Milk with Tapioca Pearls and Fresh Fruit
Traditional Chinese Name:
椰汁西米露 (Yē zhī xī mǐ lù)
I had a craving for a cold, sweet, coconut milk flavoured dessert and the only thing that came to mind was this commonly available dessert in Hong Kong that matched it.
I always thought it was hard to make, but after some research and discussions with the people at those dessert shops, it’s super easy!!
The thing I love about it is that you can make the base, primarily made of coconut milk, and then add whatever fruit, toppings, additives you want to make it your own. This worked great for the kids!
What’s involved?
Prep time: 40 mins
Cook time: 30 mins + 2 hours chill
Total time: 3 hours 10 mins
Serves: 6 bowls
Ingredients
- 1 can of coconut milk
- 1 cup of whole milk
- 3 cups of water
- rock sugar (as sweet as you like – taste if first!)
- 1 cup of small tapioca pearls
- fresh fruit, chopped into bite-sized pieces
- condensed milk (optional to sweeten if not sweet enough)
Cooking Instructions
- Soak the tapioca in cool water for 30 minutes first. In a pot of cold water, boil tapioca pearls on medium heat for around 10-15 minutes. Check the consistency and transparency of the pearls. When they are done, they’ll be completely transparent, but be careful they don’t start to melt.
- Remove from heat and run through cold water to separate. You can either leave in a bowl with cold water or just leave them in a bowl when sufficiently cooled. Set at room temperature is OK.
- In a separate pot, boil the water with the rock sugar.
- When the rock sugar has completely melted, reduce heat to a low boil and add in coconut milk and whole milk. Boil and stir together for about 5 minutes. Taste to see if it’s sweet enough. If not, you can add more rock sugar and boil on low heat until the sugar is dissolved.
- Remove from heat and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
- When ready to eat, in a serving bowl, ladle in as much coconut milk as you like, add the tapioca pearls and load on the fruits!
- Enjoy!
To start, the base is simply coconut milk, whole (or skim) milk, water, and rock sugar. Some recipes call for evaporated milk, but after sampling it with just the milks, water and sugar, it was smooth and rich enough for me.
You can find these types of tapioca (or sago) pearls from the supermarket or wet mart.
They come in a variety of sizes, flavours and colours. Typically, for this dessert, use the smaller, white pearls that turn transparent when boiled. They are flavourless and turn into a chewy ball of … chewy.
First, soak the tapioca in warm water for about 30 minutes. This will soften and expand them slightly. You then need to boil the tapioca until it’s completely cooked. You’ll know it’s completely cooked when the entire ball turns transparent. Semi-cooked will show a white spot in the middle.
The problem is that smaller balls will cook faster and then start dissolving on you, so just take care to judge how well done on average your tapioca pearls are. The trick is that you rinse the tapioca in COLD, running water after you’ve cooked it. Some people continue to soak them in a bit of cold water, or just leave them to sit cool. If you keep the warm, they will continue to cook and then merge into one giant ugly ball of tapioca!
Next, start to boil your water and let the rock sugar dissolve. Taste to see how sweet you prefer it because everyone is different. I went with a less sweet version and if people wanted it sweeter, I gave them condensed milk to mix in – just as yummy!
Reduce heat to a low simmer and mix in the coconut milk and whole (or skim) milk. You don’t want to boil the coconut milk too much or it starts to break down and separate, so give it enough heat to mix together. Boil for around 10 minutes and remove from heat. This dessert is best eaten cold, so I moved it to the fridge to cool for a few hours.
The last thing is to put it together – your way. I personally love fresh fruit with mine, so when the coconut milk mixture was sufficient cooled, I added the tapioca pearls and fresh strawberries. It’s great with fresh, chilled melons, pears, mango, durian or whatever your great imaginative mind comes up with!
