Chè Thái Recipe (Vietnamese Fruit Cocktail)

"Red Rubies"

1. Open the 1/2 can 20 oz whole water chestnuts can and drain it. Dice the water chestnuts into small pieces into ¼ inch cubes and place them in a large bowl. Don't worry if they seem small, the coating of the tapioca starch makes them bigger.
2. Add a few drops of red food coloring to the cubed chestnuts and mix thoroughly. Make sure there isn’t extra water or food coloring in the bowl because this will make the tapioca starch extra gummy.
3. Add 1 c tapioca starch to the bowl and cover all the water chestnuts evenly. To remove extra starch, place the water chestnuts in a colander and sift. You want to prevent extra starch from going into the boiling water because it will make the water gummy, too.
4. In a separate bowl make an ice water bath with 2 c water and 2 c ice.
5. Boil a pot with about two inches of water over medium-high heat. In small batches, add the coated water chestnuts and immediately stir to prevent sticking.
6. When the chestnut float to the top, remove them from the water and transfer to an ice water bath and stir again to keep from sticking. Keep them in the bath for at least 10 minutes.

Assembly

1. Crack open the coconut and set aside juice, carve out slices of coconut meat. See the post above for technique.
2. Open all the canned fruit, save the syrup from one can in a separate container. I like lychee the best, so I save this syrup. We found that if you mix the syrup from all the cans, the taste can get a bit muddled.
3. Cut jackfruit into slices, cut lychee into large slices, and cut toddy palm into thin slices. Keep the longan in its original shape since these come fairly small. Combine all fruit into a large container.
4. In another container, combine coconut milk and coconut juice. Slowly start to add the juice syrup to sweeten the milk, you want to begin by adding ½ a cup at a time. Adjust to your taste. Add the sweetened coconut milk, juice, and meat into the large container with the fruit and stir.
5. I prefer fridging the chè Thái for a couple of hours before serving so it’s nice and cold, but you can also add crushed ice if you want to serve immediately.