to the Christmas table begins more than a year before the day arrives. I make the Large Pearl Tapioca. But it starts with the vanilla I make.
Each year I travel into Iowa a couple of times thru the summer months to chase antiques and visit family in the Quad Cities area. Iowa also sells everclear…the good stuff at 190 proof. So I have to pick up a couple jugs to make the vanilla. I brown bag each bottle and stash them in a closet when I get home. Then I do my shopping for the vanilla beans. These tend to be expensive, but I found a jackpot for them in Duluth where I can buy the beans[ long ones at that] for about $1.50 each. That IS CHEAP! So for each bottle of the hoottch, I get 6 beans.
Now home again in my laboratory I slit each bean carefully, length-wise, then bend the bean in half and drop it, fold first, into the bottle. The bottles get re-capped tightly and put back in the bag and secret hiding spot for one whole year. They are not disturbed in any way…opened, peeked at, nothing. Total seclusion. Today I went down and brought up part of a bottle that is I think three years old to make my tapioca. When I opened that jug the aroma almost made me weep….not only is this the absolute best of the best vanilla for cooking but it can scent a kitchen to unbelieable heights. Anyway, now that I’m over my Martha Stewart moment…….
For the tapioca:
The day before you intend to make it, pour one cup of large pearl tapioca in a bowl and add one cup of whole milk, give a stir and set aside on the counter top for a couple hours. Give the tapioca a stir every hour to keep the pearls from clumpig up. If they do they’ll break up easily when you stir so no biggie. I leave this part on the counter for about 6 hours, but two is enough. The milk soaks into the pearls easier when its at room temperature.
To make the tapioca, beat 5 egg yolks and one cup of whole milk in a bowl until very well blended and frothy. Add 1 and 1/4 cups of sugar and beat again. Add a scant tsp of salt and a hearty tablespoon of the vanilla. I add the vanilla over the bowl because I tend to slop this stuff. One can never have too much of this in a recipe ya know. I add 1/4 cup of granulated tapioca [minute tapioca] and 1/4 cup of small pearl tapioca, then finally blend in another 4 cups of whole milk.
In a large saucepan [4 qt kettle preferably] with a wide bottom, heat this mixture very slowly. If it begins to thicken in less than 10 minutes you are cooking it too fast. Stir often until you can “just” feel the mixture begin to tighten up ever so slightly [this should take about 12 minutes], then turn the heat up just a hair. Stir constantly at this point until the mixture is fairly heavy….thicker than cold buttermilk but not as thick as sour cream. I use a spatula to stir mine and when the mixture will stay on the spatula turned so the blade runs up and down the tapioca is done. Pour into a large bowl to cool on a counter top. Give the cooling tapioca a good stir a couple times to keep the larger pearls from settling. Put the well colled tapioca in the fridge to keep it for more than a day.
So there you have it. Two recipes in the short span of one. If you have a baker in the house and want to trip her trigger, make her some vanilla. Its worth crossing state lines to get it but 100 proof vodka can suffice. Don’t cheat on the vanilla beans. Make it, hide it and treat the baker a year down the road. You will be well rewarded. Maybe with tapioca if you give the recipe along with the vanilla. And while I forget, some local nicknames for the tapioca are fisheyes or frogeyes. Make it and you’ll understand the nicknames. I tell all the small kids that its fisheyes….assures me that there will be plenty for the cook to indulge in.
