The Food That Made Me

6/14/2025

Kids, there are some times in life when you just fail. I wanted to make a pearl recipe from the Made In Taiwan book by Clarissa Wei. Simple ingredients and steps. It seemed easy enough. I had forty minutes to attempt to make pearls with Nieces 1 and 2. So, we hurried.

1. I poured 120g of tapioca starch into a bowl with #1. I didn’t have sweet potato starch, so I just skipped that step. Most recipes only use tapioca anyways.
2. #2 scooped one tablespoon of cane sugar (it was supposed to be dark brown sugar, but I don’t think that would have been the fatal blow.) Then, she mixed the flour and sugar together. I had to teach her to be a little more gentle because it was spilling out of the bowl a bit.
3. Anyways, we measured out 90g of water. We got a little confused by the measurements, but we just stuck to the 90g number.
4. And then, the chaos began. I didn’t give very clear instructions. #1 didn’t pour the water slowly enough. This is where an image showing the water dropping into the flour would have helped. But we also didn’t have a water spray bottle. Apparently, there was a squeeze bottle in the house, so I could have used that. Whoops. So, the first try turned into a glob. The starch stayed at the bottom. #1 did a palm-swirling motion, but it stayed a glob. #1 had a fun name for it, but I forgot. I’m happy that #1 had fun with the concoction.

5. Pivoting, we repeated the steps again. For the second try, I added the water into the flour a drop at a time. The kids were swapping back and forth, trying to make the pearls. I couldn’t tell if the pearls were being crushed from their hand motion. Then, #2 had a meltdown because she wanted a turn. I was just concentrating on troubleshooting whether it was working or not.

6. So, this is the time when I reread the recipe. It said to sift and remove the pearls after they are formed. Whoops. That makes sense. My brain totally forgot about that. So, I sifted it once and boiled it until it floated, then turned off the heat and waited for ten minutes. I tried one of them, and the center was still a bit floury. Not sure how to address that next time.

Maybe one of these days, I’ll document how to successfully do some of these hard things as a video. All of the secrets and techniques will be easier to follow. YouTube? But that would show how chaotic I am. Hm….

In summary:

• We didn’t have a spray bottle.
• We were supposed to swirl the starch a little, sift the pearls out, put the starch back into the empty bowl, and then keep collecting the pearls.
• I didn’t use sweet potato starch.

I’m really happy that I set the expectations that it was an experiment and we may fail in the beginning. Granted, I was actually trying to be ahead of the game and tried to look up videos on how to do it. But, all of the recipes were a completely different method where you boil the flour mixture and then make it into a smooth ball. I need to learn from my nieces to enjoy the process no matter what happens. They were still happy and wanted to try the result. And, honestly, I’m just happy to cook and experiment with them together. Are you ready to take on another challenge and try it again with a different method, #1 and #2? Maybe one day we can create yummy boba drinks together.

Nieces, I will await your return from travel. I will miss you guys greatly.