Coconut tapioca with mangoes

So.  I made this for an office birthday lunch Thai cuisine theme.  And everyone fell in love.

I have made this at one of our street BBQ parties and it was a hit.

Hubby loves this and eats portions of it every day when its in the fridge, slowly partaking of the sweet dessert controlling himself.  Otherwise he could eat it in one sitting.

I posted this on FB and was asked the recipe.

Sometimes, what seems easy can be complicated when specific details are amissed.  For example. A friend of mine in Manila asked me for the recipe and so I told her what I did - boil and cook the tapioca, warm the coconut milk and add sugar, mix the tapioca with the coconut milk, pour into pyrex or tray, chill then top with mangoes.

Seems easy, right?

Of course, I didn't realise that she buys the tapioca from the markets cooked already.   

Was she suppoesd to boil and cook them again?  

Of course, this will make things a little less starchy as cooked tapioca bought from the markets has been washed.

Nor did it occur to me that of course absolutely, fresh grated coconut is available and that she will squeeze the milk out of them to come up with, say... 400ml.   

How many cups per squeeze can you get from one whole grated coconut?  Does she use the first extraction or the second extraction?

If she had followed what I said, she would have missed a few points.  Lost in translation. Or in this case, lost in ingredient translation.

And in other news - we are on our way to a new parenting challenge in the guise of the HSC.  As migrant parents, we obviously did not go through the High School Certificate (HSC) in Australia and now that our oldest daughter is going to take it next year, there's a lot of learning and understanding that is going on in my head and hubby's.  With all the media attention during HSC and the unnecessary stress that is highlighted in the news, kids can get easily swayed into the axiety parade.  HSC is somewhat similar to the NCEE that hubby and me took in high school going to college.  This is now known as NSAT (National Secondary Achievement Test) which is a goverment initiated as well.  The difference is that the NSAT is a test based on all general subjects taken during high school which becomes a factor when applying for a place in university.  Whereas the HSC is a test for subjects which the students have chosen from a list by the Board of Studies including general subjects, and which they are preparing for from Year 11 to Year 12.  The HSC exams result per se, is not the be all and end all of the assessment.  The results is a 50/50 mark of 1) school based assessments tasks, and 2) examination marks.  It seems pretty straightforward, until they introduced another acronym called the ATAR - Australian Tertiary Admision Rank which is a basis for acceptance into some universities.  Or so I think....  as you may already noticed, we are still learning.  And HSC is part of it... learning to be Australian.

If you're a migrant like us, or a Filipino family with young kids, I'll keep you updated on what have we learned from the HSC as a family.   And if you're a parent who went through HSC, please send me some encouraging thoughts. 

For now, here's a fool proof recipe for this sweet and easy dessert.

Ingredients

1 cup mini tapioca pearls

10 cups water

 2 cans 400ml coconut milk

1 1/2 cups raw sugar

1 mango, sliced into thin strips

Method

Boil 10 cups of water.  When rapidly boiling, add the tapioca pearls and continue to boil.

Once the tapioca pearls are half way through cooking - the outside part of the pearls are transparent but the middle part is still white, turn the heat to low and simmer the pearls until cooked through, stirring occasionally to prevent from sticking to the bottom.  This can take from 30-45 minutes on simmer.

Drain the cooked tapioca pearls through a sieve under cold running water.  Set aside.

In a medium sized pot, boil the coconut milk then add the sugar, stirring to make sure the sugar has dissolved.  Simmer until the sauce thickens slightly.

Add the tapioca pearls and stir distribute the pearls throughout.  

If the sauce looks too much, scoop some of the sauce into a bowl and set aside.  The pudding should have enough sauce to tapioca pearl.  Reserve the extra coconut milk mixture.

Transfer to a pyrex or dish and chill in the refrigerator overnight, or 8 hours.

Top the pudding with the mango strips and served.

 

Tips and tricks:

*If you are using already cooked tapioca, simply drain the store bought pearls before adding to the thickened coconut milk.

* If using freshly extracted coconut milk, use the first extraction and about half a cup of water added per whole coconut.

* If after chilling, you find that the pudding is too thick, add a half cup of the reserved coconut milk mixture at a time until you get the desired consistency and thickness.

* These can be served in individual cups or serving glasses like my previous post with papaya, topped with any fruit you prefer.

* Fruit topping should be tropical like mangoes, papaya, purple yam or pineapple to suit the dish.  As coconut works well with tropical fruits.

* I have prepared this before in individual cups for my mom's 75th birthday party and topped them with purple yam / ube jam.