Sabu makha
Sago pearls with ripe, fleshy summer fruits in this no-cook Bengali snack
- Cooking time30 minutes
Calories368kcal
Sabu makha is Bengal summer in a bowl. This no-cook snack made with sabu (or 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 Gandhoraj 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 the 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!)
Books in this recipe
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
Method
- Wash and soak the sabu overnight in water (or milk). Make sure the sabu are completely soft, or they won't be able to absorb any of the flavours. Drain the water and set the sabu on a strainer.
- In a bowl, add mango pulp, banana, jackfruit passed through a strainer, grated coconut, gondhoraj juice, salt and sugar.
- Using your hands, mash and mix everything until smooth.
- Add the strained sabu. Mix.
- Add milk, mix again, and allow the 'makha' to rest for 20 minutes. During this time the sura will have melted and the sabu absorbed the flavours of the fruit.
- Serve in bowls, topped with some more chopped mango and jackfruit.
