Step 1

Open the water chestnut can and drain. You will only need about half of the water chestnuts.

Step 2

Cut the water chestnuts into small pieces about ¼ inch and place them in a large bowl (the coating of the tapioca starch will make them bigger).

Step 3

Add a few drops of red food coloring to the small pieces 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.

Step 4

Add one cup of 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.

Step 5

Boil a pot with about two inches of water over medium-high heat. In small batches, add the covered water chestnuts and stir to prevent them from sticking. When the chestnut float to the top, remove them from the boiling water and put them in an ice water bath and stir again to keep from sticking.

Step 6

Keep them in the bath for at least 10 minutes.

Step 7

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 quite muddled.

Step 8

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.

Step 9

Open coconut and set aside juice, carve out slices of coconut meat.

Step 10

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.

Step 11

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.