I came across a call in a Chinese recipe for ‘cassava jelly, which can be found in north Chouzhou grocery stores.’

Not…terribly helpful. An internet search brings up very little as well.

So Cassava is a starchy, woody-looking tuber which is used the world over as a culinary staple. Also known as Yuca, or Manioc. It does feature in several sweet preparations, often in a grated and boiled form, and the dried cassava starch is also known as….Tapioca.

Alright, now we’re getting somewhere!

Okay, so Tapioca is often used to help gel things. Tapioca starch is found in gluten free cooking, and tapioca balls, AKA boba balls, have become pretty popular in the US.

Could it be the recipe is talking about boba? Or something else?

A bit more digging..tapioca is often found commercially in flakes, sticks, or ball form. It’s not entirely clear if pure tapioca in ball form is the same as boba balls.

Apparently boba is NOT the same as sago, although the names are sometimes used interchangeably and in the west, often only tapioca can be found. (Sago are ALSO small balls that become jelly-like when cooked and is something that’s pretty commonly called for in these recipes)

SO, if we assume that they are, in fact, talking about tapioca jelly and/or boba balls, that opens up things considerably. Sort of.

Turns out that there are different ways to prepare tapioca jelly. I’m not even sure if this is the same thing.

According to Wikipedia,

‘A typical recipe for tapioca jelly can be made by washing 2 tablespoonfuls of tapioca, pouring a pint of water over it, and soaking for three hours. It is then placed over low heat and simmered until quite clear. If too thick, a little boiling water can be added. It can be sweetened with white sugar, flavored with coconut milk or a little wine, and eaten alone or with cream.’

Rasamalaysia has a recipe for ‘tapioca flour jelly’ as part of another recipe. This combines tapioca flour and boiling water, combined to form a dough which is then rolled out and cut.

I am going to try both ways and see which one I want to use in the recipe I originally found it in. Honestly, that recipe (a mung bean sweet soup) doesn’t sound totally exciting, so maybe this is just procrastination.

UPDATE:

SO, I just tried making some tapioca jelly with rasamalaysia’s flour method.

Some notes:

• Tapioca starch is EXTREMELY STICKY when the hot water hits it. Proceed with caution. The dough stuck to damn near everything.
• Sift the tapioca starch before you work with it, or you’ll get lots of little white lumps in your dough that no amount of mixing will remove.
• Add the water a little bit at a time, stirring constantly until it becomes a dough.
• Tapioca jelly kind of tastes like nothing. This makes me think that its on of those things you often see in chinese cooking, where it’s there for texture.
• Okay, apparently you are supposed to boil bits of the dough until it becomes chewy and translucent. Thank god, because the raw stuff is really gross.

I didn’t get to the rolling out part of it, but my gut tells me that it would be best to do on saran wrap or baking paper powdered with sugar or more starch.

Will keep you posted on take two..

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