January 17, 2021
The start of a new year means the beginning of exciting possibilities. Whenever a new year begins, I like to tell myself I will learn more, cook more, eat healthier, and spend less. I usually do a good job of staying on track with my goals until the first holiday of the year comes around. Usually, the holiday is Chinese New Year. Holidays always give me an excuse to indulge in my favorite foods. I like to plan holiday menus a few weeks in advance by brainstorming some of my favorite foods to eat around the holidays. During the past Thanksgiving, Kevin and I celebrated at home by recreating some of my favorite traditional thanksgiving dishes. When Christmas rolled around, I decided to put new twists on some of my favorite Chinese dishes. My drink of choice during the holidays is no doubt bubble tea. I always get my fix of bubble tea when I visit family in New York or in Hong Kong. Whenever Kevin and I travel to either New York City or Hong Kong, I like to load up on the endless varieties of bubble tea available to enjoy. Since we did not get to travel during the holidays this year, I opted to recreate the bubble tea experience by making my own at home complete with homemade bubbles. My version of homemade bubbles features the first three ingredients found in the instant bubbles I like to pick up at the Asian grocery store. Those three ingredients are tapioca flour, corn starch, and water. To get a natural color with a fruity touch, I experimented with folding in fruit jams into the dough. The experiments turned out even better than I expected. The bubbles flavored with jam not only added a beautiful hue to the bubbles, the jam also added a wonderful fruity flavor to the bubbles. By using fruit jams to add the color and fruitiness to the bubbles, I can enjoy homemade bubble tea and still stick to my goals of cooking more and eating healthier. I started testing out my homemade jam bubbles a few weeks back using a blend of tapioca flour, corn starch, warm water, and jam. The dough was tricky to get just right at first. If too much liquid is added, the dough becomes the consistency of quicksand. If too little water is added, the dough becomes too crumbly to work with. Finding the right balance of liquid to flour to make sure the dough was soft enough to mold yet firm enough to hold its shape once rolled out into tiny balls was key. Making sure the consistency for the bubbles is just right is super important for helping the bubbles achieve the perfect chewy consistency. After a few trials of too large bubbles, stiff bubbles, and too soft dough, I was finally able to produce bubbles with the right texture and consistency. For the milk tea itself, I like to prepare a batch of concentrated black tea, sweeten it up with maple syrup, and top it off with a couple dashes of evaporated milk. The sweet woodiness of the maple syrup pairs beautifully with the creaminess of the evaporated milk. The colorful, fruity bubbles add the perfect touch to the bubble tea. Sipping bubble tea brings back memories of my travels home to New York City and abroad to Hong Kong every single time. To round out our lunch, I prepared bowls of veggie packed rice bowls featuring Kevin’s absolute favorite preserved Chinese sausages and pork belly. We enjoyed the homemade bubble tea and rice bowls as we took trips down memory lane of our travel adventures in New York City and Hong Kong. I await the day when we can safely travel to see family and friends across the globe once again.
For the homemade bubble tea:
(makes 2 servings)
For the homemade bubbles:
· ½ cup tapioca flour
· 1 tablespoon cornstarch
· 1 tablespoon fruit jam of your choice (I used black raspberry)
· ¼ cup lukewarm water
For the rest of the bubble tea:
· 16 ounces black tea, hot
· 2-4 tablespoons maple syrup
· ¼-½ cup evaporated milk
Directions:
1) In a bowl, combine the tapioca flour, corn starch, and fruit jam. Gradually add the lukewarm water ½ tablespoon at a time until the mixture comes together. Knead the mixture to form a loose dough. The consistency of the dough should be firm yet still hold its shape when pressed together. Pull off pieces of the dough and roll the pieces of dough into tiny balls. Continue this process until you have rolled the desired number of tiny balls for your bubble tea. I was able to roll out about 75-80 tiny balls from the dough.
2) Heat a pot of water over high heat until the water begins to boil. Once the water is boiling, transfer the bubbles into the water and cook in two batches. Let the bubbles cook in the boiling water for about 2 minutes. Strain the cooked bubbles and serve immediately with your favorite bubble tea.
3) To make the maple milk tea, divide the black tea equally into two glasses. Divide the maple syrup and evaporated milk equally between the two glasses. Serve with the cooked bubbles. Enjoy.
Takeaways: The homemade bubbles do take some time to make from scratch. I used black raspberry jam (one of my favs), but feel free to use any jams you have on hand. Fruit bubbles pair very well with green tea. One of my favorite combos is raspberry jam bubbles paired with apple juice and green tea. The flavors are super delish.