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Lara MWater Chestnut
October 7th 2008 03:15
The Chinese water chestnut, most commonly known as just water chestnut is a popular Asian cooking ingredient cultivated in wet paddy fields in China.
These nutritious underground corms reaching up to 4cm in diameter have an appealing crisp nut like texture and can be eaten raw, slightly boiled, grilled, pickled, or tinned. This vegetable is so versatile that recipes include them for a variety of reasons including their contrasting texture to many dishes or they can deliver their sweetness and juiciness prepared fresh and raw or lightly steamed or sautéed for salads.
Peeled Water Chestnut
Water chestnuts are also used in Chinese desserts such as water chestnut cake and various other sweet soups where they can be found chopped and sweetened, although in China, these rounded corms with their distinctive crispy, white flesh are most commonly eaten raw and sweetened.
The corms are high in nutritional value with studies showing a richness in carbohydrates, starch, dietary fibre, riboflavin, vitamin B6, potassium, copper, and manganese.
Water Chestnut Cake
Water chestnuts can be grown in a pond of a container, an old bathtub or a salvaged water tank cut in half are ideal options. Plant the corms in spring, about 5cm deep into friable soil preferably rich in organic matter and course sand. Keep the plants moist until the shoots are about 10cm tall, then fill the container up with water until it's about 10cm deep, with the tips of the leaves just showing. Leave the container flooded at that depth for about 6-7 months, then drain off the water in late autumn. Leave the soil moist but not wet for another month or so until the shoots die down, then harvest the water chestnuts. Water chestnuts will grow in most areas of Australia, but they are frost tender and require at least an 8-month frost-free growing season.
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