Sangaray or water chestnuts are used as medicine in Pakistan

Now that the monsoon season is over and the floodwaters are receding here in Pakistan, there has been an enormous amount of devastation. In the local bazaar the price of chicken has plummeted, as poultry farmers are desperate to sell their birds because the buildings that housed them have been destroyed by the floods. This is good news for the consumer at the moment, but the other side of the coin is that the price of eggs has skyrocketed.

We now have bright red carrots in the bazaar and my husband came home with water chestnuts when he went to the old Raja Bazaar earlier this week. These are called ‘sangaray‘ here and although Pakistani cuisine doesn’t seem to include them like Southeast Asian cuisines, they are used in medicine.

If you’ve never eaten freshwater chestnuts, you may wonder why they have this name, since what do the tuberous roots of an aquatic plant have in common with a nut? The answer is – the taste. Some of these sangaray it tastes like chestnuts roasted in a brazier; others have a more floral flavor. However, whatever variety I’ve eaten here has tasted very different to the canned ones I’ve used in Europe.

In Pakistan these water chestnuts are often pulverized and used to make roast (chapattis) and the water left after boiling them is mixed with a few water chestnuts, liquefied and given to children suffering from meals. they said that sangaray They have cooling properties, so they are good for heat stroke and fever. Powdered water chestnuts mixed with milk or water are said to be good for urinary tract infections such as cystitis, and the juice of these edible roots is used to cure indigestion and nausea.

They are much like delicious chocolates in their hard shell and must be boiled until the shell is softer. I eat them fresh from their shells, so I think they are like the roasted chestnuts found on street corners in Portugal and Greece at this time of year.

Unfortunately in this part of Punjab (Islamabad/Rawalpindi) we cannot find them in our local bazaar. The vegetable seller asked my husband how to cook them, so we suspect they are not as popular here as they are in South Punjab around Lahore. Water chestnut season is eagerly awaited there and it is said that they will cure post-monsoon fevers. Knock on wood. I haven’t had one yet, but it’s nice to know that a delicious cure is at hand.