Angry Apron

This post was suppose to be earlier, but Mother, after I explicitly told her NOT to, took my boba and cooked it in the rice cooker. I don’t know why?! but that’s what she did. It turned out into one big boba. It was, needless to say, mildly upsetting.

But with nothing to do on a Saturday night, I bought another bag of boba. Well I wanted to see 9 but someone didn’t want to go. Anyho, I decided to experiment by making the quintessential Taiwanese drink: Boba.

After having this delicious, chewy potato starch all through grade school, high school, keeping my sanity in college and helping me reminisce in grad school, I just had to take a stab at making it.

Ingredients:

• Potato starch balls, I used 大統珍珠粉圓 (Datong Zhenzhu Fenyuan)
• Water
• Dark brown sugar or molasses or some type of yummy dark sugar**
• Time
• Patience
• And more time
• And more patience

**I actually wanted to try with Winter melon Tea Sugar 冬瓜露 (donggua lu) but I forgot to buy it, so instead I used dark brown sugar

To start testing your patience and potentially making deliciousness,

1. Add some sugar (molasses, dark brown sugar, honey, your choice sweetener) into the water and boil. Take a large stock pot, and start boiling water the syrup mixture (maybe add a cup or two of sugar for a large stock pot, you don’t want it too sweet because we will be making a syrup for the boba later). The sugar will help prevent the boba from sticking to each other.

For a whole bag, I would suggest using 1 part boba to 7 parts water. But as a general rule, make sure that the boba has room to swim. They can’t be too crowded, repeat, they CANNOT be too crowded, or else the boba will begin to stick together and become one big lump of boba. Don’t forget to give the water a pinch or two of salt.

2. Once the water has come to boil, dump in the boba and begin stirring. Seriously, start stirring because if you don’t the boba WILL stick together.

3. Let it boil for 20-30 minutes and stir frequently to prevent the boba from sticking to each other. The boba will start out as a light brown color, but once it touches the water it’ll turn a delicious onyx black.

4. Meanwhile, as your preparing the boba, start making the simple syrup to soak the finished boba.

5. For the syrup, in a small or medium sauce pan, heat up equal part of sugar and water. Let the mixture come to a boil. Let it simmer. Cool. Done.

Easy peasy, I know.

I actually did it slightly different (and probably wrong) but I browned my dark brown sugar first, so it melted and caramelized into deliciousness. I slowly added an equal part of HOT water. The sugar still crystallized, but melted back into the syrup and gave the syrup a slightly less sweet, but smokey flavor. It was pretty delish, but most likely cancerous. Eh.

6. Back to the boba. As the boba is still boiling, after the 20-30 minutes, you’ll want to start to simmer them for another 20-30 minutes with the lid on. Make sure you stir occasionally and check on the boba to make sure they aren’t sticking together. They should be okay, but it’s still good to check. Ideally you’ll have a glass lid so it’ll be easier to see.

7. Periodically check to see if the boba is done. The above time I stated WILL vary from batch to batch. You know they’re done when the outside is a beautiful onyx and chewy, but the inside is almost like an al dente pasta. It should give, but not too easily. It also shouldn’t taste too mushy.

If you think it’s done, then quickly rinse the boba under cool water to stop the cooking process.

But the finished boba in a metal bowl on top of some cold water to further cool the boba.

8. Add your syrup

9. Enjoy! You can put it in milk tea to make Boba milk tea 波霸奶茶 boba naicha or with green bean soup 綠豆湯 lvdou tang or on top of shaved ice 刨冰 baobing.

Unfortunately, my batch came out not good. After all that work and time it was a big fail. My boba was all sorts of off. Some were cooked perfectly, some were undercooked, some where mushy. It was very upsetting. My caramelized syrup was delicious, but that’s besides the point.

I suspect it has something to do with the brand that I bought or perhaps I just cooked it wrong. OH NOES! Then that MAKES ME ANGER!

But seriously, if anyone as any suggestions to help to make it better (or maybe I really am cooking it wrong) let me know!

AngryAprong ANGER! Eat you laters!