Boba / Tapioca Black Pearls: Learning To Prepare Boba

The first time I tasted boba with pineapple strawberry smoothie, I loved it. Boba is a black pearl like tapioca that is used in cold beverages. They have an awesome chewy texture and I love having them with fruit based drinks or smoothies. Every time we have our famous family get togethers, my daughter, sisters, nieces and nephews and I never fail to visit the mall. Once inside, we look forward to Surf City Squeeze's boba smoothies. The minute we reach their counter, we act like kids at the candy store. There is a great sense of insecurity about the availability of boba for the whole gang that, we have to quickly find out if they have enough stock of boba. It then determines if all of us get one or two shot of boba in our smoothies.

A few days ago, I googled on boba and found that it was something simple to prepare at home, so I decided to give it a try. So, today at Ranch 99 Market, I found an overwhelming amount of packaged boba and I decided to try the instant kind. The label said that it takes 5 minutes to cook, which  would be good for a starter ( please refer to the photo above. If you do not have access to a Asian store you can buy them on line at amazon.com.

The cooked boba looked so beautiful like black pearls and I could not but wonder how a string of them would look. My daughter thought that it was funny and made her flower necklace and I stuck to the sting of black pearls.

For after school snack, we had our blended berry and banana boba smoothie. We were so excited to have our own stock of boba in the fridge for use at any time.

Note: If anyone reading the post thinks that I must use some other kind of boba please do drop me a comment and I will learn to do it right.

Gadgets:

Colander

A big Stock Pot

Spatula

Measuring Cups

Ingredients:

Baba/ Tapioca Pearls - 1 packet (1 1/2 cups)

Water - 12 cup

Sugar - 1/4 cup

Preparation:

1. Bring to boil 8 cups of water. Add 1/2 cup of boba at a time and keep mixing. The pearls will start to float and plump up. 

2. Turn the heat to medium and cover the stock pot. Allow to cook for 5-8 minutes.

3. Drain the water and wash the boba well. Transfer the boba into the stock pot with 4 cups of water and 1/4 cups of sugar. 

4. Make smoothies and use this boba. Do not remove it from the sugar water because they would stick and become very tough.