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

廣西桂林及廣州泮塘（泮塘馬蹄）著名；肇慶亦產 — 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

Common at Asian grocers

Pairs well with