Making Tapioca -- Saturday, October 21, 2006
After a long search for the proper ingredients and tools (the right pan and the right kind of sifter), Paul and I succeeded in reproducing a wonderful Brasilian food: tapioca. No, this is not the tapioca that you're thinking of. Tapioca is, according to our Brasilian cookbook, "the starch that settles out of the extracted juice of bitter manioc pulp." We think there is more to it than this because when we were looking for the raw ingredients we bought at least three differnt types of "tapioca" and "tapioca flour" before we found the right thing. Many, many forms of manioc are used in Brasil. We finally found the right kind of "tapioca flour" (after much asking in our broken Portuguese!) in, of course, the Ver-o-Peso market. The women who sold us the "goma de tapioco" also told us were to go for the appropriate sieve (right across the street). SUCCESS! Today we made four delicious tapiocas! As you can see from the photos, the end result is a crepe-like (it could be burrito-like if one added the approriate ingredients . . . maybe next time!).

Sifting 487 X 649 43 KB	sifting 2 649 X 487 38 KB	sifting 3 649 X 487 34 KB	Fillings 649 X 487 43 KB	fillings 2 649 X 487 42 KB	fillings 3 649 X 487 41 KB
Getting ready to roll 649 X 487 37 KB	Getting ready to roll 2 649 X 487 37 KB	Getting ready to roll 3 649 X 487 43 KB	Rolling 649 X 487 38 KB	The finished product! 649 X 487 26 KB

copyright © 2006 Catherine A. Rigsby