Water Chestnut Cream

By KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Ms Heng Ju-ee


Serves: 4

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

*Source of vitamin A

Ingredients

  • 385g fresh water chestnuts, peeled and chopped coarsely
  • 80g canned gingko nuts
  • 500ml unsweetened high-calcium soy milk
  • 200ml water
  • 130g rock sugar
  • 4 pandan leaves, knotted
  • 100ml low-fat/trim coconut milk
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten

Method

  1. Boil water, sugar and pandan leaves in a saucepan, over a low flame, until the sugar is completely dissolved (about 10 minutes). Remove the pandan leaves from the syrup.
  2. Add soy milk, water chestnuts and gingko nuts. Bring to a gentle boil.
  3. Stir in coconut milk. Finally, add beaten egg in a small stream before turning off the heat.
  4. Serve warm or cold.

Cooking Tips

  1. Using low-fat/trim coconut milk (instead of coconut cream) retains the authentic taste of this dessert with a lot fewer calories and less fat.
  2. To customise the amount of sweetness for each serving, transfer the syrup in Step 1 into a small jug or milk pourer. Continue with Steps 2 and 3, and serve the unsweetened dessert with the jug of syrup on the side.

Nutritional Information

1 serving = ¼ serve dairy and ½ serve vegetables

Energy: 250kcal

Protein: 8g

Fibre: 5g

Calcium: 76mg

Folic acid: 17mcg

Vit C: 2mg

Iron: 0.7mg

*Vit A: 1618 IU

Nutritional Tips

  1. The water chestnut is actually not a nut but a vegetable. It is commonly used in desserts as well as savoury dishes. Water chestnuts are often cooked with bamboo shoots, coriander, ginger, sesame oil and snow peas.
  2. Ginkgo nuts are very popular in traditional Chinese and Japanese cuisine. Some studies have shown that ginkgo may slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, although more research needs to be done for conclusive results.
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