Coconut Tapioca with a Mango blackberry salad

Recipe courtesy of Bobby Flay

I am happy to say that a few days ago I found my tapioca in a local Asian market (the same market I found my kaffir lime leaves - but that's another story). So now after a week or so of hovering over this recipe, it was time to get out the sauce pan.

Tapioca soaking in a water bath.

1/2 c. dried tapioca (soak for 1 hour in 2 c. water)
2 cans coconut milk (Unsweetened)
2 cinnamon sticks (I used a tsp of ground)
1 1-inch piece of ginger peeled and chopped (I grated them in)
1/2 a whole nutmeg crushed (I would recommend 1/4 whole nutmeg grated)
1/4 c. Sugar

1/3 c. Simple Syrup
1/3 c. creme fresh

1 Ripe Mango
1 c. Blackberries
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 a vanilla bean scraped (i used regular old vanilla - though it did make it runny)

Combine the first group of ingredients in a sauce pan and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes until it has reduced to about 3 cups (strain if not using ground spices). Once this is acheived cool a bit (I popped it into the freezer for a while) then return to the sauce pan with the strained tapioca and cook until the tapioca is clear and looks like little fish eyes (2 to 5 minutes). Then Take off heat and and once again allow to cool. Once cooled to your desired temperature (I like mine a little warm) add the simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar heated together until sugar is dissolved) and creme fresh.

Serve this with the Mango and Blackberry salad.

I am happy to say, that this was in fact as good as I thought it would be, and will be made again.