A friend of ours, Amy, recently invited us for a dinner, she called it the 'Jantar experimental' or experimental dinner... she is a nutritionist, and gourmet chef from California who moved to Brazil last year.Being cooked for is always great..but being cooked for by a gourmet chef (and nutrisionist:) is EVEN better!
She made some super delicious food with a mix of Brazilian ingredients and Thai flavours that not only was orally orgasmic but also made me realise how many cool things one can do with Tapioca!
Some of the 'Tapioca Treats' she made included fruity cocktails with tapioca pearls, tapioca dumplings, and tapioca dessert pudding with melon. All this inspired me to get creative and make my own version of tapioca dumplings as I had some tapioca in the cupboard, and some Tuna..so here's the result of my 'inspired experiment'!
Ingredients:
Rinse pearl tapioca in a fine strainer, drain and transfer to a bowl. Dissolve salt in hot water and gradually add to the tapioca, mixing well. Cover and leave for 1 hour.
While waiting, prepare the filling- place all in food processor for just enough time for the cashews to blend a bit.
Using your fingers roll the pearl tapioca into roughly 5 cm balls with damp hands. Cover with a damp cloth. Wash and dry your hands and dust them with tapioca flour. Press thumb or finger into each ball to form a cup shape. Put in a teaspoon of TUNA mix and seal the tapioca over the filling. Mold into balls again and cover with damp cloth until ready to cook.
Steam over boiling water until the tapioca is quite clear, roughly 20 minutes. Remove the steamer from the heat and leave for 5 minutes for the balls to dry slightly before transferring to a serving dish. Sprinkle with crushed fried garlic or crushed roasted peanuts and garnish with chili slices.
You can find lots of cool info and recipes on Amy's site- cutely named 'sweet beet nutrition'. It is packed full of cool info but also full of mouth watering and healthy Recipes!
Some of the 'Tapioca Treats' she made included fruity cocktails with tapioca pearls, tapioca dumplings, and tapioca dessert pudding with melon. All this inspired me to get creative and make my own version of tapioca dumplings as I had some tapioca in the cupboard, and some Tuna..so here's the result of my 'inspired experiment'!
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups pearl tapioca
- 3/4 cup hot water
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 can of Tuna -in water, whole chunks
- Coriander, garlic and Ginger (to taste- I use lots of all three)
- Squeze of lime/lemon juice
- Salt & pepper- to taste
- Finely chopped medium onion
- 1 cup of Cashews
- Some chillies- if you're the spicy type, which I REALLY am!
Rinse pearl tapioca in a fine strainer, drain and transfer to a bowl. Dissolve salt in hot water and gradually add to the tapioca, mixing well. Cover and leave for 1 hour.
While waiting, prepare the filling- place all in food processor for just enough time for the cashews to blend a bit.
Using your fingers roll the pearl tapioca into roughly 5 cm balls with damp hands. Cover with a damp cloth. Wash and dry your hands and dust them with tapioca flour. Press thumb or finger into each ball to form a cup shape. Put in a teaspoon of TUNA mix and seal the tapioca over the filling. Mold into balls again and cover with damp cloth until ready to cook.
Steam over boiling water until the tapioca is quite clear, roughly 20 minutes. Remove the steamer from the heat and leave for 5 minutes for the balls to dry slightly before transferring to a serving dish. Sprinkle with crushed fried garlic or crushed roasted peanuts and garnish with chili slices.
** They also tasted great the next day..I reheated them by frying them in coconut oil and it gave them a nice very slight golden crunch**
You can find lots of cool info and recipes on Amy's site- cutely named 'sweet beet nutrition'. It is packed full of cool info but also full of mouth watering and healthy Recipes!
