Tips for buying/cooking tapioca
If buying tapioca at an Indian store, look for the words sabudana or javvarisi, which are both words for tapioca. If buying tapioca at an American store, opt for the smaller sized tapioca balls. The general rule of thumb is the bigger the tapioca balls, the longer it will take to cook them. I prefer Bob’s Red Mill. Avoid using instant tapioca if you are looking for a bouncy and chewy tapioca texture. Allow the tapioca balls to soak in water before cooking them on the stove. This helps the pearls hydrate and decreases the time to cook them on the stove. Test the tapioca doneness and chewiness before adding the milk into the pudding.
Evaporated milk is the key to easy tapioca pudding
Whenever I make Indian desserts like pistachio kulfi or pal payasam, my secret ingredient is evaporated milk. Evaporated milk is milk that has much of the water content cooked out, which saves time compared to regular milk, which requires time and patience to slowly boil the water out. In addition, evaporated milk doesn’t have added sugar, unlike its sweetened condensed counterpart, which means that you can control exactly how much sugar goes into your pudding.
