Name: Sabu makha
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 5 portions
Cuisine: Indian

Yields

5 portions

Cooking Time

30 minutes

Ingredients

300 g sabu (tapioca)
150 g jackfruit
300 g mango
200 g banana
100 g grated coconut
2 tsp juice of Gondhoraj lime
4 g salt
45 g sugar‍
250 g milk

Sabu makha is Bengal summers in a bowl. This no-cook snack made with sabu (sabudana in Hindi) is perfect for the hot and humid days when cooking can feel like a painful task even for those who love to cook. You really can use any fruit you like, but we have chosen Martaman bananas, sweet, ripe and fragrant Himsagar mangoes, and soft and juicy variety (gola) kathal or jackfruit. The grated coconut adds texture and flavour with every bite. The acidity from the Gandharaj lime (a lime found in Bengal that is similar in fragrance to kaffir lime) cuts through the sweetness to create the perfect balance. This is something we grew up eating for breakfast and sometimes for evening snack in late summer and monsoons when the mangoes and the jackfruits ripen.

Tapioca is a starch extracted from the cassava root. Sabu or sabudana is the South Asian variant, but similar processing of the starch produces different kinds of tapioca pearls all across South and Southeast Asia (think boba!)

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Recipe Notes

Method

Wash and soak the sabu overnight in water (or milk). Make sure the sabu are completely softened, or this won't taste as good.
The next day drain the water and set the sabu on a strainer.
Peel the mangoes and separate the meaty part from the seed. Chop the mangoes into small cubes.
Starting from the stalk, open the jackfruit and slowly separate the edible parts (watch the video). Remove the seeds as well as the inner brown membrane.
Grate the jackfruit against a strainer to extract the pulp. Mash the mangoes and the bananas using your hand.
Squeeze the Gondhoraj lime, add the grated coconut, sugar, salt and mix everything until smooth.
Add the strained sabu and mix again.
Add milk to achieve the desired consistency. We like it neither too runny nor too dry. Remember that if you store the sabu makha, the sabu will soak up the liquid and you may need to add more milk to dilute it before serving.
Serve in bowls topped with more chopped mango and jackfruit.