Suppression
Water chestnuts
Category: Food
Type
Voluntary
Introduction and description
*************** BEING EDITED MORE LATER ********************
The Chinese water chestnut or water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis) is a grass-like sedge native to Asia (China, Japan, India, Philippines, etc.), Australia, tropical Africa, and various islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It is widely grown in many countries for its edible corms.
The water chestnut is actually not a nut at all, but an aquatic vegetable that grows in marshes, underwater in the mud. It has tube-shaped, leafless green stems that grow to about 1.5 metres.
Description
Medicinal uses
The corms are rich in carbohydrates (about 90% by dry weight), especially starch (about 60 percent by dry weight), and are also a good source of dietary fiber, riboflavin, vitamin B6, potassium, copper, and manganese.
More details will be provided later.
Method
The small, rounded corms have a crisp white flesh and can be eaten raw, slightly boiled, or grilled, and are often pickled or tinned. They are a popular ingredient in Chinese dishes. In China, they are most often eaten raw, sometimes sweetened. They can also be ground into a flour form used for making water chestnut cake, which is common as part of dim sum cuisine. They are unusual among vegetables for remaining crisp even after being cooked or canned, because their cell walls are cross-linked and strengthened by certain phenolic compounds, like oligomers of ferulic acid.This property is shared by other vegetables that remain crisp in this manner, including the tiger nut and lotus root.
Raw water chestnuts are slightly sweet and very crunchy. Boiled water chestnuts have a firm and slightly crunchy texture, with a flavor that is very mild and slightly nutty, so it can be easily overpowered by any seasonings or sauces with which the water chestnut is served or cooked. Water chestnuts are often combined with bamboo shoots, coriander, ginger, sesame oil, and snow peas. They are often used in noodle or rice dishes