Tapioca Pudding

A lot of recipes for tapioca pudding seem to involve one folding egg whites in, but I've never had tapioca that way and I think it's perfect just the way it is. I like to use Large Pearl because I like chewing on the balls—I got that from Bobo Tea—but if you want more of a seamless texture, go for Small Pearl.

Yesterday was the first time I made tapioca in a double boiler instead of in the rice cooker. I really like the tapioca pudding recipe from the Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook, and there's no stirring involved, but I always end up having to clean dried egg goop out of the tiny vents with a brush for a half hour, and that's no fun. So instead I used the recipe on back of my box of Island Large Tapioca Pearls, with a few changes, of course.

Recipe:
1/2 Cup tapioca
3 Cups milk - I used skim, that's fine
1/4 tsp. Salt
2 Eggs well beaten
1/2 C. sugar- I used only 3/8 C. sugar because George told me he cuts a fourth of the sugar out of most recipes, and that was a good decision
1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract

Soak tapioca 24 hours in 1 Cup milk in the fridge. Drain. In a double boiler, add 2 C. milk, tapioca, eggs, salt, sugar, and vanilla. Cook 15-20 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and allow to stand 10 minutes. Eat right away or chill.

Of course, I decided to talk to my mother on the phone while stirring in hopes that the stirring would decrease stress, and what happened was that about ten minutes into my stirring, I realized that I had forgotten to add the tapioca. George shook his head and said what a funny person you are! What happens if you overcook the rest of the ingredients is that the texture goes all mealy. So we had a mealy texture that tasted good with some delightfully chewy tapioca balls.