Vietnamese · Dessert
Che Chuoi
- Easy
- 25 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, toasted, nutty warmth throughout, with a clean, bright snap.
Ingredients
- 700 g ripe bananas, peeled and cut into 3 cm pieces
- 100 g caster sugar
- 60 g small tapioca pearls
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 200 ml coconut cream
- 300 ml water
- 3 g fine salt
- 1 pandan leaf, knotted
- 30 g white sesame seeds, toasted
- 30 g roasted peanuts, crushed
The skills inside
The bare simmer: holding liquid below the boilThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: nuts · peanuts · sesame
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Toss the banana with 30 g of the sugar and leave it 20 minutes; it weeps liquid and firms up, so the pieces hold their shape instead of melting into the pot. 20 min
- Boil the tapioca pearls in plenty of water for 8 minutes to 10 minutes, until only a white dot is left in each centre, then cover the pan off the heat for 5 minutes until the dot clears and rinse them in cold water. 8 min
- Bring the coconut milk, water, pandan leaf, salt and remaining sugar to a bare simmer, slide in the banana, and poach 5 minutes to 7 minutes until the edges go translucent and a skewer meets no resistance. 5 min
- Stir in the drained pearls and the coconut cream and warm it through without letting it bubble, then take the pan off the heat.
- Serve warm or cold under the sesame and peanuts.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes
- Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
- The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
- The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
- The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
- Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.
Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.
The bare simmer: holding liquid below the boil 183 recipes
- The surface is read rather than assumed: bubbles break slowly in one or two places, or the surface merely shivers, and it does not reach a rolling boil at any point.
- It was held there: the pot was watched and the heat adjusted rather than set once and left, and there is no tide mark up the pot wall from a boil-over.
- The liquid stayed as clear as it should be: no clouding from agitation, and no fat churned into an emulsion through it.
- Whatever is in the liquid is still intact: nothing shredded, broken up, or worried apart by movement.
- The level is roughly where the elapsed time should have left it; a large drop is the evidence that it ran hotter than this while nobody was looking.
Where it goes wrong It was brought to a boil and then left on the same heat, so it churned for the whole cook: the liquid clouded, the fat emulsified into it, and the solids broke apart into the broth.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Demi-sec Champagne
- Also Right
- Off-dry Chenin (Vouvray)
- From the Taps
- Fruited sour
- Zero-Proof
- Coconut water with lime
Tropical sweetness wants bubbles or Chenin’s honeyed acid: richness met with lift, not more weight.
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