Looking for new desserts to make? In this post, I’ll provide new ways on how you can satisfy your sweet tooth, and teach you new cooking processes as well! Here, I’ll be concentrating on a Vietnamese dessert Rainbow Tapioca Pearls with Grass Jelly.
All of the ingredients will not be available in big supermarkets, so I strongly suggest that you make a trip to the smaller Asian or Vietnamese stores <it’s not as hard as it looks—most of these ingredients should be available in these stores>.
Below, we’ll be making Vietnamese Rainbow Tapioca Pearls with Grass Jelly, made with ingredients like mung bean paste, grass jelly, and coconut milk, and tapioca pearls.
These are popular Vietnamese desserts, so you’re assured of wonderful layers of textures and flavors. Good luck!
Vietnamese Rainbow Tapioca Pearls Recipe
1. Prepare The Ingredients for the Vietnamese Rainbow Tapioca Pearls Recipe
For Mung Bean Paste
- Mung beans, 4,2oz
- Sugar, ⅓ cup
For Grass Jelly (Optional) and Coconut Milk
- Coconut milk, 1 cup (if you don’t have coconut milk, try these great alternatives)
- Sugar, 1 or 1½ tbsp
- 2-3 pandan leaves
- Grass Jelly powder, 2½ tbsp
- Water, 1¼ cup
- Sugar, 3 tbsp (for Grass Jelly)
For Tapioca Pearls and Other Ingredients
- Water chestnuts, 1 can
- Tapioca starch, 1 cup
- Food colors (red, green, yellow…) ( or you can use the color from red beets and pandan leaves, carrots…)
- One portion of Lod Chong Singapore dessert
- Chipped ice
2. Vietnamese Rainbow Tapioca Pearls Recipe: Step by Step Directions
Make Mung Bean Paste
- Wash mung beans thoroughly and shake to remove excess water.
- Pour 1 ¼ cup freshly boiling water to soak for 2 hours.
- Add 1 cup extra hot water, cook on high heat. Remove foam when water boils.
- Set heat to low and simmer until beans turn tender.
- Stir occasionally so that the beans won’t be burnt. Add more hot water if needed.
- When the beans are cooked and tender, mash the beans with a whisk or use a food processor to puree beans, add ⅓ cup sugar (to taste), stir to dissolve sugar. Let cool and set aside.
Prepare Grass Jelly
- Place 2½ tablespoon grass jelly powder in a pot, add 1¼ cup clean water (at room temperature) to the flour. Stir to dissolve and leave the mixture at room temperature for 15-20 minutes.
- Cook on high heat and stir constantly until the water boils and the grass jelly powder dissolves, turns transparent, turns off the gas. Add sugar to taste.
- Pour the jelly into the mold, let cool at room temperature then transfer to the cool dry place of your fridge for 1 hour until jelly is totally set.
Prepare Coconut Milk
- Shake the box or the can of coconut milk well.
- Pour coconut milk into a pot and add 1½ tablespoons sugar and a pinch of salt. Stir to dissolve sugar, and cook on medium heat.
- Once boiled, turn off the heat, add pandan leaves then let cool to room temperature. Set aside.
Make Tapioca Pearls
- Wash chestnuts and dice the pomegranate seeds, divided into 3 portions. (Water chestnuts can be substituted with apple, pear…)
- Prepare 3 bowls of clean water, mix some food color with water in 3 bowls, (or you can use the pandan juice, carrot juice, and red beet juice to make colorful tapioca pearls)
- Add each portion of diced water chestnuts to the 3 bowls, soak for 45-60 minutes to “dye”.
- Drop water chestnuts to the sieve and drain, keep the water that used to soak water chestnuts.
- Place water chestnuts in a bowl. Add about 1-2 tablespoons dried tapioca starch, slightly mix so that the tapioca flour sticks to water chestnuts.
- Add one more tablespoon of tapioca starch, mix well until the water chestnuts are covered by flour. Continue adding 1 more tablespoon tapioca starch and mix, and now there’s a thick layer of flour around water chestnuts.
- Drop the water chestnuts into the sieve, gently shake to remove excess powder.
- Pour the water that used to soak water chestnuts into the pot, add more water. Boil on high heat then drops the water chestnuts to boiling water. Stir gently to separate the pearls. When the pearls float and turn transparent that means they cooked. It will take around 1-1.5 minutes.
- Prepare a big bowl of clean water, add some cubes of ice. Take the pearls out and drop them to cold water, leave for 15 minutes
- Repeat with the rest of the water chestnuts then we have 3 portions of tapioca pearls
- Note: Separately boil each portion of water chestnuts and the colorful water to avoid mixing color.
3. Serve!
- Take the grass jelly out of the fridge and remove it from the mold, cut it into cubes
- Add mung bean paste, white grass jelly, colorful pearls, Lod Chong Singapore, and coconut milk.
- Stir well and serve cold.
Good Luck!
I hope these recipes taught you about new flavors! Vietnamese desserts may sound complicated to make, but don’t get intimidated—as long as you have the right ingredients and you follow the process, everything should be easy!
If you enjoyed the flavors of these Vietnamese Rainbow Tapioca Pearls, I suggest that you explore the cuisine a little further. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and there’s so much more to explore!
Comments, suggestions, and recommendations are most welcome! Simply leave me a message, and I’ll try my best to answer them. Thanks for dropping by, and I hope your dish turns out delicious!
Read Next: How to make sakura flower cookies.
I Eat and Review Products.
Joshua is one of the best product reviewers. He reviews products in such a way a lawyer asks a question to an accused. You can find him doing machinery work in his little lab. His dad was a machinist in Toronto. Probably Joshua gets his affection for the gadgets from his dad. Joshua’s mother was a home cook. She made him really tasty food. Joshua once said in an interview, ” I probably fall in love with cooking when i was just 12 years old.”