Water chestnut

The water chestnut, the crisp corm of a sedge grown in flooded paddies, with dark papery skin over sweet, snow-white flesh. Peeled and used whole or halved, it stays distinctively crunchy through long boiling and adds a spring-water sweetness to coolers like the sugarcane-imperata drink.

TCM properties

Nature · cold　Flavour · sweet　Meridians · lung、stomach

Traditional food therapy

In Cantonese food therapy water chestnut is used to clear heat, transform phlegm and generate fluids to soothe the throat, a signature ingredient of cooling sweet waters.

Cautions: read first

• Take care if you have a weak, cold spleen and stomach
• Eaten raw they must be peeled and washed thoroughly (against fasciolopsis fluke)

Preparation

Peel them; for soup they can go in whole or halved.

Origin

Guilin in Guangxi and Pantang in Guangzhou are the famous sources (Pantang water chestnut); Zhaoqing grows them too. Fresh is an in-store Asian-greengrocer buy in Australia (canned is the fallback); dried Zhaoqing water chestnut serves a different use

Availability in Australia

Easy to find

Pairs well with