A couple of listeners have asked us to talk you through Tapioca Pudding. It's the sort of thing you can buy in the fridge section of health food stores and at specialty Thai Dessert Takeaway places - but unlike it's spiritual sister Bubble Tea, this is pretty easy to make!

Boil 3 cups of water

Add in 1/2 cup of tapioca pearls

Stir and keep an eye on it. The pearls will go from opaque white to translucent and glassy.

Don't overcook it. Take it off the heat when there's still a white nucleus.

Srain and rinse in cold water, stirring with clean hands.

In a seperate small saucepan, cook up

1 cup of coconut milk,

1/2 cup sugar,

1 knotted pandan leaf

Warm the coconut sauce on the stove to thoroughly dissolve the sugar.

Once warmed through, add back in the cooked tapioca. Stir gently. Spoon or pour out into serving cups and top with sour mango or regular mango, and if mango is out of season, top with any fruit such as paw paw, melon, tinned mandarin, pomegranate, etc. Leave to set in the fridge or eat still warm.

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We discuss the utter absence of cooking with cactus in our lives (!) and a cookbook which I have loved by Nik Sharma called VEG-TABLE.

To make the recipe, you need

500g Orecchiette (thus named because the tiny scooped pieces look like a baby's ear

285g frozen peas

11/2 tsp cumin seeds and 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed in a mortar and pestle

4 cloves of garlic, grated

1 tsp red pepper flakes, eg., Aleppo, Maras or Urfa.

2-3tbs white miso paste (I use 3, Nik Sharma says 2)

lots of grated Parmesan or Grana Padano (I use a cup+)

snipped chives from the garden

Boil the pasta in generously salted rolling boiling water a minute or 2 less than the amount of time recommended on the packet. In the last 2 minutes, add the peas to the pot. Drain, reserving 1 cup of pasta water. Dress the cooked pasta/peas with 1tbs of olive oil. Set aside and then:

Warm 3 tbs good olive oil then add cumin seeds and fennel seeds. Fry for less than 1 minute until releasing their aromas. Add in the garlic and red pepper flakes.

Dissolve the miso paste in 1/3 cup of the reserved pasta water. Add this to the fried spices then add the peas and crush them a little so they're less intact and more prepared to integrate with the sauce.

Use a big slotted spoon to fold the cooked pasta into the spice mixture, adding in about 1/4 cup of cheese. Feel free to add a bit more pasta water to make the final version brothy. Taste. It may need more salt. Serve with more cheese on top and some generous snips of chives.

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On today's episode Simon and Yumi reminisce about when they first started recording the podcast more than 280 episodes ago - in the KiiS Sydney studios, using Kyle Sandilands's diamond-encrusted microphone.

It's been an incredibly fun and delicious ride since then and today's a bit of a full-circle moment as Simon builds on that first ever episode's food suggestion - try grating a tomato on your box grater. Add olive oil and a generous pinch of salt, garlic if you want (don't have to), and then spoon this simple mixture onto sourdough toast. Unbelievable!

So what now? Cook it? Add seafood? You'll have to listen! And share the podcast with your people!

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