Tapioca (Beiju)
A genuinely pre-Columbian indigenous Brazilian technique, its name from the Tupi word 'tipi'óka': Tupi and Guarani peoples developed the process of grating, soaking, and pressing toxic raw cassava to extract safe, usable starch long before Portuguese colonization, and beiju, the original flatbread made this way, is the direct ancestor of the tapioca crepe sold across Brazil's North and Northeast today. It's genuinely different from the Asian tapioca-pearl tradition used in bubble tea, a common point of confusion worth correcting directly: that's a completely different product, gelatinized starch boiled into chewy balls, while Brazilian tapioca uses granulated, hydrated tapioca starch sieved into small clumps and pressed dry on a hot skillet into a chewy flatbread, with no water-boiling or pearls involved at all.
Ingredients
- 2 cups granulated tapioca starch (goma de tapioca)
- Water, for hydrating
- Pinch of salt
- Cheese, coconut, or shredded chicken, for filling (optional)
Steps
- Rub water into the tapioca starch a little at a time until it forms small, evenly moist crumbs, not a wet paste.
- Sieve the hydrated starch to remove any larger clumps.
- Sprinkle the crumbs evenly into a hot, dry non-stick skillet, covering the surface.
- Cook until the starch fuses into a flexible disk, then flip briefly.
- Add a filling to one half if desired, fold over, and serve warm.