Family FECS: Healthy & Nutritious Homemade Bubble Tea - with Pearls Made with Black Glutinous Rice

Monday 12 August 2019

Healthy & Nutritious Homemade Bubble Tea - with Pearls Made with Black Glutinous Rice

Ingredients:

Milk Tea:
1. 2 tea bags or 1 TBS tea leaves (I prefer Jasmine, Olong or Earl Grey)
2. 65 ml (1/4 cup) water

Black Pearls:
1. 100 g black glutinous rice flour (about 1/2 cup and 1 TBS)
2. 65 ml (1/4 cup) cup water
3. 2 L water for cooking the pearls

Sweet Milk:
1. 185 ml (3/4 cup) full cream fresh milk
2. 3 dried dates pitted
3. A handful of ice-cubes

Directions:

Tea:

1. Boil water.
2. To make bubble tea, the tea has to be very strong to bring out the flavor. In a cup, add 1 tablespoon of tea leaves. When the water is boiled, pour in about 1/4 cup of the hot boiling water into the cup with tea leaves.
3. Let it steep for 15 minutes, remove tea leaves and set aside to cool down.

Black Pearls:

1. Grind the black glutinous rice into flour or buy ready-made black glutinous rice flour. i grind mine in the Magimix dry mill for 1.5 minutes, stop and shake after every 30 seconds in between.

2. In a mixing bowl, add the black glutinous rice flour and gradually add in 1/4 cup of water. Knead it into a dough. In the beginning, you will find that it feels very gritty. But as the gluten slowly releases, you will find that the dough will come together. Knead for 10-15 minutes until the dough does not stick to your fingers. By now, it will be less gritty, although it will still feel kind of gritty. That's ok, as it is a whole grain.

3. Form into round shape or balls. I use a straw to make it round and so that the resulting pearls can fit into the straw. I didn't smooth it to make it round like a ball. It will be a little flat but round shape. This saves me time from having to form it into a complete ball pearl shape. It will yield about 200-250 black pearls. It took me an hour or more to do all that, thus it is very time-consuming.

4. In a large pot, bring to boil 2 litres of water. Add in the black pearls that you have just formed from the black glutinous rice. Stir until you are confident that they are not sticking together while boiling. Simmer under medium heat for 20 minutes (no. 5 on my stove) until cooked.

5. Remove and them into a bowl of iced water. Scoop out and set aside. You can make this ahead of time and freeze them up for later use.

Sweet Milk Tea:

5. In a blender, blend tea, fresh milk and dried pitted dates for 30 seconds.

Bubble Tea:

1. In a glass, add some ice-cubes, a handful of black pearls and the sweet milk tea. Stir and enjoy :-)

Additional Information:

Bubble tea is tasty but, apart from the tea, store-bought it is very unhealthy and poor in nutrition, because it is full of sugar and the black tapioca pearls are carbohydrates and nothing else. In addition, it contains artificial coloring. I decided to experiment and make my own black pearls using black glutinous rice instead. Black glutinous rice is very nutritious. It contains many vitamins and minerals. So at least, I know that my kids are getting some nutrients while enjoying their bubble tea. The black pearls, or shall I say, purple pearls may not be as pretty to look at compared to commercial tapioca black pearls and may not taste exactly the same, but it is pretty close. It is chewy and in addition, provides nutrients when consuming it.

To reduce the calories of this drink, you can use low fat fresh milk instead.

References:

https://healthynibblesandbits.com/how-to-make-bubble-tea/
https://www.bubbleteasupply.com/bubble-tea-recipes/

1. Boil water.

2. To make bubble tea, the tea has to be very strong to bring out the flavor. In a cup, add 1 tablespoon of tea leaves. When the water is boiled, pour in about 1/4 cup of the hot boiling water into the cup with tea leaves.

3. Let it steep for 15 minutes, remove tea leaves and set aside to cool down.

Grind the black glutinous rice into flour or buy ready-made black glutinous rice flour. I grind mine in the Magimix dry mill for 1.5 minutes, stop and shake after every 30 seconds in between.

Now it's done :-)

Add 1/4 water

Knead it into a dough. In the beginning, you will find that it feels very gritty. But as the gluten slowly releases, you will find that the dough will come together. Knead for 10-15 minutes until the dough does not stick to your fingers. By now, it will be less gritty, although it will still feel kind of gritty. That's ok, as it is a whole grain.

Form into round shape or balls. I use a straw to make it round and so that the resulting pearls can fit into the straw. I didn't smooth it to make it round like a ball. It will be a little flat but round shape. This saves me time from having to form it into a complete ball pearl shape. It will yield about 200-250 black pearls. It took me an hour or more to do all that, thus it is very time-consuming.

In a large pot, bring to boil 2 litres of water.

Add in the black pearls that you have just formed from the black glutinous rice. Stir until you are confident that they are not sticking together while boiling. Simmer under medium heat for 20 minutes (no. 5 on my stove) until cooked.