Two weeks ago, I talked about chestnuts in this space. This week, we’re featuring a different kind of chestnut -- water chestnuts. You’re probably familiar with them as the small white globes or slices that provide a little crunch in Chinese dishes, and you’ve seen the cans at the grocery store.
Did you know they’re available fresh? Did you know you could grow your own? Did you know that if you were growing your own, now would be the time to harvest them?
Fresh water chestnuts are little brown globes, the corms of the water chestnut plant. True to their name, these are plants that thrive in water. Many Asian markets and international farmers markets have fresh water chestnuts available, generally sitting in tubs of ice water.
That’s where Valerie VanSweden found her water chestnuts. VanSweden is responsible for the edible garden at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. They have a water feature, and VanSweden was looking around for aquatic edibles to feature there.
“The first thing that came to mind was water chestnuts, and I went on the hunt to find them online. It was a grower who told me to go to an Asian market and buy them fresh there,” VanSweden told me. After a little experimentation, she settled on the best growing method, and she’s harvesting her first crop this year.
You can reproduce her success. The garden uses large rectangular masonry mixing containers, available at hardware stores, and fills them with a growing mixture of sand, manure and activated charcoal.
VanSweden said the next step is to choose firm, unblemished fresh water chestnuts and set them into the soil with just their tips showing. “Saturate the soil and keep it wet until the plants are a few inches high. Then you can plunge the trough in your backyard pond,” she told me. You could use a more decorative waterproof container and place the container anywhere in your garden that gets full sun. Just keep the plants completely covered with water.
“The leaves are tubular and a very bright green, really beautiful,” she said. Harvesting involves reaching around into the mud when the foliage has died and picking out the corms. They grow like strawberry plants with the original corm sending out lots of little roots, each of which develops a new corm. The ones the garden harvested ranged from marshmallow to pingpong ball size.
Water chestnuts need a good seven months to get to harvestable size, so if you’re going to try this in your garden, start your water chestnuts in April.
Fresh water chestnuts remind me a bit of jicama. They have that same juicy crunch and are a little sweet, reminiscent of apples. I can assure you that they are a completely different creature than the one you get out of a can.
Fresh water chestnuts won’t keep long. Your best bet is probably to keep them like they do at the markets, in your refrigerator in a container of water, changing the water daily.
At local farmers markets
Cooking demos
6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3. Chef Seth Freedman of Ruby Root Connections. East Atlanta Village Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.farmeav.com
9:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 5. Chef Drew Belline of 246. Morningside Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.morningsidemarket.com
10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 5. Chef Lisa Rochon. Peachtree Road Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.peachtreeroadfarmersmarket.com
11:30 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 6. Chef Hugh Acheson of Athen’s Five and Ten and the National. Grant Park Farmers Market, Atlanta. www.grantparkmarket.org
For sale
Vegetables and fruit: African squash, apples, arugula, Asian greens, beans, beets, broccoli, broccoli raab, butternut squash, cabbage, carrots, chard, collards, dandelion, endive, escarole, field peas, frisee, ginger, hareuki and other turnips, herbs, kale, leeks, lettuce, mache, mushrooms, mustard greens, pea shoots, pears, peppers, popping corn, potatoes, pumpkins, radishes, spinach, sweet potatoes, tomatoes
From local reports
Curried Water Chestnuts and Scallops
Hands on: 15 minutes
Total time: 15 minutes
Serves: 4
1/2 pound fresh water chestnuts
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small onion, diced
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon dried red chile flakes
3/4 pound sea scallops
Cooked rice
Prepare water chestnuts by rinsing and then trimming tops and bottoms. Peel, discarding any flesh that is brown. Slice in half and set aside.
In a large skillet, heat oil over high heat until very hot. Add onion, ginger and garlic and saute until just beginning to turn translucent, about 4 minutes. Add curry, coriander and chile flakes and continue heating until onions are cooked through, about 2 minutes. Move onion mixture to the perimeter of the skillet and put water chestnuts and scallops in the middle. Cook, about 2 minutes, until scallops turn opaque on first side. Turn scallops and water chestnuts and cook 2 minutes more until scallops are completely opaque but not overcooked.
Serve over rice.
Per serving: 207 calories (percent of calories from fat, 33), 16 grams protein, 19 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 8 grams fat (1 gram saturated), 28 milligrams cholesterol, 147 milligrams sodium.
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