I don't know about you, but it is the beginning of a new year and it's January, which means its winter time! While it may not be that cold here in the Southwest USA, it's still relatively chilly here at night and I always crave a good Chinese dessert. When I was back in Southern California, there are a lot of Chinese dessert places to go but not much here.
I decided to make my own coconut sago dessert. I didn't have premade sago so I just made QQ balls -- like boba but more light brown sugar balls -- they are basically just chewy little starch balls coated with sugar.
The first thing to make is the boba balls or taro balls. You can buy the premade balls and skip the first part of making the dough, but if you want to make them from scratch, this is what I used.
I remember trying to make boba when the pandemic hit in 2020 but I couldn't make the balls as chewy and they were kinda hard but they ones I made today were good and chewy!
For the brown sugar balls: (Serving size: 1 cup)
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup tapioca starch/powder
- 1 1/2 Tbsp potato starch
- 1 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 3 Tbsp boiling water (40g)
Method:
1. whisk starches together with the sugar. Combine and mix.
2. Pour 3 Tbsp of boiling water directly onto the mix. Use a spatula to fold and press the dough into the center. Do it until dough forms a good consistency -- Not too sticky and not too wet. Add more water if too sticky and add more tapioca starch if too wet/smooth.
3. Once dough is good, take dough out onto workspace. Knead dough a couple times. Dough should still be warm (If not warm may add more boiling water as you work otherwise may not be as sticky)
4. Once you are ready, it's time to make the individual boba balls by hand. Keep dough covered when not in use so the dough doesn't dry out. First, start out by making about a 1" ball. You may massage and knead it a couple times. Use your hands to keep the dough moist. Afterwards take the ball and roll it out into a longer cylinder; about 1/4" diameter. If you want you can use a 1/8" measuring cup size to remove a tiny part out and roll into a ball. You can also use your hand to estimate a small ball.
5. Once the ball is made, sift some more tapioca starch on it. Keep going until you have finished all the balls. Once done, make sure to use a sifter to sift out extra starch from the balls.
6. Now, it's time to boil the balls and cook them. This one takes more of an art to make sure the balls have a good and chewy consistency.
7. First bring water to boiling in a pot on the stove.
8. Once boiling, drop balls in the pot. The balls will slowly float to the top of the water level (this should take 1-2 minutes). Once they are all floating, lower heat to medium and simmer for about 20 minutes. At this point, the boba balls should become a translucent color - which means they are done.
9. After 20 min, remove balls from heat. If balls are still not a translucent color, you can keep the water with the balls to continue cooking. If you want more sweetness to the ball, you can put the balls in a simple syrup (equal parts warm water and sugar) while the balls are sitting.
Now onto making the taro and coconut milk soup!
First you'll need:
Ingredients: (for 2 servings)
-1.4 cups water
- 4/10 lb of taro (1 small taro root)
- 10g or 1/4 cup rock sugar (I used brown sugar instead)
- 2.7 oz coconut milk
- 1/20 cup sweetened condensed milk (more or less to taste)
-pinch of salt
Method:
1. Prep taro first. Skin the taro with a knife or shaver. Cut half the taro into large chunks and the other half into smaller 1/4" cubes.
2. Add the cups of water into a pot. Place larger taro chunks and sugar in as well. Bring water to a boil
3. Once water is boiling, taro should start to get soft. Mash the taro into smaller pieces once they are cooked. The taro and liquid should start to thicken.
4. Once taro is cooked, reduce to a low/medium simmer. Now stir in the smaller taro cubes into the mixture.
5. Mix the coconut milk and sweetened condensed milk together on the side and then add into the mixture after the smaller taro cubes are in. Add a pinch of salt if desired.
6. Simmer a few more minutes until small taro is cooked. Continue to stir occassionally so the soup doesn't stick.
7. Add the boba balls you made earlier into the mixture. Continue to simmer for 1-2 min.
8. Now you can remove from heat and it is ready to serve!
You can eat it immediately as a hot dessert soup in the winter, or if you'd like refrigerate it and serve chilled as a cold dessert.