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Like most kids in Taipei, I discovered taro balls on one of my school field trips to the not-so-quiet-anymore mountain town of Jiufen (九份). A-gan-yi and Lai-a-po are the two prominent taro ball purveyors, where you’d find cooked taro balls (but also sweet potato balls, mun bean balls, and purple sweet potato balls) sitting in large bowls of sugar syrup ready to go on shaved ice or in hot adzuki bean soup. The pleasant chewy yet soft texture and the nutty aroma of taro make taro balls some of my absolute favorite things to eat. Along with boba pearls, taro balls are the definition of what the sought-after QQ texture taste like.
INGREDIENTS
TARO BALLS
225g taro, peeled and cut into big chunks
22g peeled d purple sweet potato
35g granulated sugar
45g tapioca starch1
20g potato starch, plus more for the bench
SWEET POTATO BALLS
227g sweet potato, peeled and cut into big chunks
24g granulated sugar
45-55g tapioca starch2
20-35g potato starch
DIRECTIONS:
Steam the taro and sweet potato: In an Instant Pot, add 1 cup of water to the inner pot. Insert a vegetable steamer rack, and add the taro, purple sweet potato, and sweet potato.
Use the high-pressure function and cook for 8-10 minutes, quick release when done. Alternatively, steam with a regular pot on the stovetop for 20-25 minutes.
Mixing the dough: In a mixing bowl with a masher or a fork, immediately mix taro and sugar together until sugar dissolves. Add in tapioca starch and potato starch, and adjust consistency using more tapioca starch or more water as needed. The dough should be cohesive, holds its shape, and show no cracks.
Shaping the dough: Divide dough into 2 portions. Flatten each portion with your hands into a rectangle, about 1/2” in height. Using a pastry cutter, cut into 2/3” x 1/2” pieces. Sprinkle some potato starch, and toss and coat all the pieces to prevent sticking. Don’t be shy here use as much starch as you need.
Sweet potato balls: Extra care should be put into the sweet potato version, as sweet potato’s high moisture content can require too high of a starch percentage which can negatively affect the texture and make it difficult to cook through. I recommend pan-frying (it’s not frying really, just letting most of the moisture evaporate) the sweet potatoes with the sugar on a non-stick pan over the lowest heat, mashing and spreading it out thinly on the pan and mixing every 1-2 minutes until the puree feels hard to move with a spatula and looks visibly dryer. Then proceed with the same steps as above to mix and shape the dough.
Cooking the balls: Add the balls into a large pot of boiling water. You need a lot of water here. Cook for 1-2 minutes after the water reboils and until the balls visibly expand in size. Remove and add to a bowl of with sugar added, about 1/2 cup, mix well and serve within 2 hrs.
To serve: Serve taro balls either hot or cold, in light sugar water, sweet dessert bean soup (adzuki or mung beans), or sweet douhwa (dessert tofu) soup. In the summer it’s perfect as a topping over shaved ice, in the winter it’s extra comforting in a bowl of warm ginger black sugar water.
Storage: Store uncooked taro balls tightly wrapped in the freezer. No need to defrost when ready to cook.
Sweet potato flour can also be used, although most of the products labeled as “Sweet Potato Starch from Taiwan” in the US are actually tapioca flour, for actual Taiwanese sweet potato flour is difficult to source and more expensive.
I’m giving a range here for the starches to account for the different moisture levels, so use as much as you need up to the upper limit. When drying out the sweet potato puree, use how the mashed taro feels as a baseline. These are going to be chewier than the taro ones but that’s completely normal.