Bubor Cha Cha

Sweet Potato and Sago in Coconut Milk

My husband and I love to roll up our sleeves and make these bright lengths of dough.
Bubor cha cha is a joyful burst of coloured sago ‘jewels’ and can be served either warm
or chilled with crushed ice.

makes 8 servings

600 g or 1¼ pounds sweet potatoes

600 g or 1¼ pounds yam

450 g or 1 pound white sugar

6 cups coconut milk, separate the
top layer of cream and set aside

3 pandan leaves, tied into a knot

230 g or 8 ounces tapioca flour,
set aside 30 g or 1 ounce
for dusting

6 tablespoons cold water

½ to 1 teaspoon green food colouring

½ to 1 teaspoon blue food colouring

½ to 1 teaspoon red food colouring

1.   Skin the sweet potatoes and yam. Cut them into cubes
of side 1 cm or ½ inch.

2.   Prepare a steamer and steam the cubes for 15 minutes
until they are cooked.

3.   Meanwhile, combine the sugar, coconut milk and
knotted pandan leaves in a pot and bring to a boil. Stir to
dissolve the sugar. Turn off the heat and let cool. Discard
the pandan leaves.

4.   Bring a pot of water to a boil.

5.   Meanwhile, place the 230 g or 8 ounces of tapioca flour
in a bowl. Add enough cold water to form a fine paste. Press
out lumps. Pour in some of the boiling water to make a
thick starch paste with opaque consistency. (Leave the pot
of remaining water boiling over low heat.) Stir to remove
lumps. Transfer the starch to a clean table dusted with
extra tapioca flour. Divide the starch into three portions
and add enough colouring to make one portion red, one

portion green and the third, blue. Roll each portion into
long strips, about 1 cm or ½ inch in width. Using scissors,
snip the strips into bits of 1-cm or ½-inch squares or
triangles.

6.   Remove the sweet potato and yam cubes from the
steamer and allow to cool.

7.   Turn up the heat for the pot of boiling water, adding
more water if necessary. When there is a rolling boil,
gather the starch bits and drop them into the pot. When
the bits start to float to the surface, gather them up
with a slotted spoon and plunge in cold water to stop the
cooking process. Leave in the cold water so that they do
not clump together.

8.   Combine the bits with the yam, sweet potatoes and
sweetened coconut milk.

9.   You can serve bubor cha cha warm or chilled.
If chilled, refrigerate for at least 4 hours, adding the
coconut cream to each bowl just before serving.

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