How to make Savory Boba

For years, I’ve been dreaming about making savory boba, inspired by Nigerian usi which I grew up eating. Made from tapioca starch, water, and red palm oil, usi is like boba in that sense and my grandma Irene and my mom would make it

and serve it with fresh fish pepper soup, and Banga. And it’s one of my favorite things ever. I love the chewy texture and slightly savory flavor.

I wanted to honor them both, and serve it as part of a soup course. And so I made my dream version with white tapioca pearls pearls.

I’m so thankful to Hungry Huy and their How to Cook White Tapioca Pearls blog post. They’d tested so many different brands of tapioca pearls and all are not made equal!

I learned a few things and will do another post soon. Hungry Huy shared “If you bought a bag of white tapioca pearls, and you find that there are no instructions anywhere, I’ve found that the 30 & 30 method is a great starting point of figuring out how to properly cook white tapioca pearls.”

And this was my situation so I followed their 30 & 30 cooking method – 30 minutes cook time, 30 minutes rest time.

Mine took 3 rounds of this.

And had I not read their post, I would have continued cooking because some of the cores of my pearls still had a white center. The key as Huy shares is checking and tasting throughout the cooking process. “It’s important to note that just because tapioca pearls still have an opaque center, this doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t fully cooked.”

Such a helpful post. And because of it, I was successful in making this really, really gorgeous, delicious savory boba with lemongrass water, and it worked perfectly in my pepper soup.

Must recreate soon!

Bye x