Ingredients send grocery list
Grass Jelly Ice
2 530g cans unsweetened grass jelly
2 cups (480g) water (use 1 1/2 cup if you want it extra concentrated but reduce the sugar and honey by 10%)
2/3 cup (130g) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup (85g) honey
Taro Balls & Mashed Taro
2 pounds (900g) peeled taro, see note *
3/4 cup (90g) tapioca starch
3/4 cup (90g) cornstarch
1/4 cup (60 grams) granulated sugar
6 tablespoons hot cooking water, plus more if needed
1/2 cup (120g) half-half (50% heavy cream + 50% whole milk)
1/4 cup (60g) light brown sugar
1/4 cup (55 grams) maple syrup
1 pinch sea salt
Yam or Sweet Potato Balls
1 pound (450g) peeled yams or sweet potatoes
3/4 cup (90g) tapioca starch
3/4 cup (90g) cornstarch
1/4 cup (60g) granulated sugar
6 tablespoons hot cooking water, plus more if necessary
To Serve
6 coffee creamer capsules
Directions
Make the grass jelly ice. Place one can of grass jelly in a blender with water, dark brown sugar and honey. Blend on high for 1 minute until the mixture is extremely smooth. Transfer into a shallow and wide baking dish that would hold, plastic-wrap and chill in the freezer. Every two hours or so, rough up the mixture with a fork, until the whole thing is frozen into large and small solid chunks, about 6 to 8 hours. Leave in the freezer until whenever needed. Take the other grass jelly out of the can, and grate it through the finely-shredded side of your box grater. They would look like tiny thin noodles, which is the texture I like. You can also cut it into chunks in the size that you prefer. Leave in a zip-lock container in the fridge for up to two weeks until needed.
Make the taro balls and mashed taro. Cut the peeled taro in quarter, then into ½-inch-thick slices. You can't boil the taro in water because they tend to disintegrate. Put them in the center of a larger cheese-cloth or towel and tie it to enclose. You can now either steam the pouch in a pressure-cooker for 10 minutes under pressure (let it depressurize naturally afterwards), or a normal steamer on high for 30 minutes, or microwave on high on a 3 minutes interval, turn and repeat. Either way, you want to cook them until you can insert and break off the taro with a fork completely effortlessly.
While the taro is still hot, transfer 400 grams of it into a stand-mixer bowl. Add tapioca, cornstarch, sugar, and 6 tablespoons of the cooking water and knead until evenly combined. Check the dough, which should be soft and slightly tacky, and should be able to be squeezed in various shapes without any dry cracks and stick to your fingers just slightly. If it feels too dry, add 2 tablespoons more cooking water.
Transfer ¼ of the dough onto a working surface and roll it into a long strip about ½-inch (7mm) thick. Cut the strip into quarter length, dust with more tapioca starch to prevent sticking, line them up, and cup them into ¾-inch (15mm) long nuggets. Toss them in more tapioca starch until lightly coated and repeat with the rest of the dough. Scatter the taro balls in a shallow baking dish and freeze until hardened. Afterwards, transfer into a zip-lock bag and keep frozen for up to 3 months until needed. Transfer the rest of the cooked taro into a large bowl, add half-half, light brown sugar, maple syrup and pinch of sea salt. You can either mash this with an immersion blender (my go-to), which will give you a sticky, gummy and almost chewy puree. Or you can use a normal potato masher, which will give you something closer to a mashed potato texture. This is totally personal preference. Transfer to an air-tight container and keep in the fridge for up to 1 week until needed. You cannot freeze this, it will turn the mash grainy and kinda watery.
Make the yam/sweet potato balls. Cut the peeled yam into ½-inch slices. Transfer into a pot and fill it with cold water. Set on high heat and bring to a boil, and cook for about 15 minutes until you can effortlessly insert a fork into the flesh. Drain very well, and the rest of the instruction is exactly the same as taro balls. Bring a pot of water to boil. One serving of taro and yam balls is about ⅓ loose cup each. Add the amount you need into the boiling water, and once the balls start to float to the surface of the cooking water, cook for another 1 minute or so, or until they start to swell up. Meanwhile, dissolve 2 tablespoons of sugar in 1½ cup of water to make a sugary water. Once the balls are cooked, rinse them under cold water to get rid of a little bit of the starchy surface, then drain and transfer into a bowl. Fill the balls with the sugary water until just submerged (this is to prevent it from sticking together). You can prepare this up to 2 hours ahead of serving.
To Serve. The suggested ratio is this: 2 loose cups of grass jelly ice on the bottom, ¼ cup of shredded grass jelly on top, 1 ice cream scoop of mashed taro, 1 serving of taro and yam balls each. Then at last, a drizzle of coffee creamer. Devour immediately.
TEST KITCHEN NOTES
* For precision, I'm providing the weight of taro after peeling. I would say it's about one medium sized taro. Do not use mini taro. They won't work. Remember, this combination is the classic. But there are many different ones available in Meet Fresh shops. If you can't find taro, you can use ube/purple sweet potato to make the balls. But mashed ube/purple sweet potato is too overpowering in taste in my opinion. Sugar-braised red beans, peanuts, mung beans, barleys, tapioca boba, are all popular toppings.
