They are in full bloom right now all around the country and it’s hard not to immerse myself in the sweet, deeply scented sprigs of jasmine.

My first jasmine taste memory was sipping little mouthfuls of tea from Chinese cups and having sticky bow ties, feeling very grown up at our favourite Chinese restaurants. It’s jasmine tea that I can recall being most used in cooking, simply used instead of water to cook rice, and imparting a beautiful flavour, as well as a pot of brewed tea used as a poaching liquid for fruits.

I have often read about jasmine bubble tea, which is made from a sweet, sugary and milky jasmine tea with tapioca, which resembles bubbles. Sounds like fun!

Sago and tapioca have always been favourites of mine, although often scoffed at by friends, most of whom had some bad boarding school memories. But it’s all about the mouth-feel of these tiny smooth balls that actually have no taste, but add some great texture to dishes. I take every opportunity of eating them when they – very rarely – appear on menus.

Years ago I had a little restaurant at the top of Long Street. It was before there were really any Asian restaurants in Cape Town, and we turned our lunchtime eatery into an Asian spot every Friday night, having the most fun conjuring up authentic Thai dishes.

The one dessert I made was a tapioca terrine flavoured with palm sugar, granadilla and a drizzle of coconut milk. It was called saku piak – quite something for the 80s at the top of Long!

Recently I ate a delicious teacup filled with a creamy lemon sago baked custard and piled with meringue at the beautiful restaurant Babel in Simondium. And something really different, served with a fiery beef rendang at Indochine in Stellenbosch, was a warm chilli sago sambal. I could have eaten much more of both.

I seem to have a fixation with pearl-like ingredients. When visiting Sydney a few years ago I came across really large couscous grains that are bigger than tapioca. Recently I noticed them on the shelves at Woolworths – not as big as I the original ones, but definitely bigger than the tapioca pearls we all know. They are slightly chewier, cook up looser and make a new salad statement, just in time for summer.

Enjoy!
Abigail

Photographs: Toshiyuki Omai, Andrea Nguyen and Eazy Traveler.