Looking for a delicious, refreshing dessert to make during the summer? Make chè thai! It is cold, milky, chewy, and sweet all at once. It requires no stove, no oven, just a few bowls and utensils.
When you go to Vietnam, there will always be a chè thai shop or cart where a Vietnamese lady will make you a nice, cold cup of refreshing chè thai. The main ingredients used for chè thai are a variety of jellies and fruit. Attending a Vietnamese event, for dessert, there most likely would be a cold bowl of chè thai ready to be served. It is a quick and affordable dessert to make, while also putting in effort.
Chè thai is a Vietnamese dessert, originating from Thailand, using local fruits in its region to spin off of the Thai dessert. Thapthim khop, a Thai dessert, inspired Vietnam in the early 2000s, using coconut milk, jackfruits, and ruby-like chestnuts covered in tapioca flour. Expanding on this dessert, Vietnamese people added more ingredients that they could find or make for an easy and quick dessert that grew to become very popular.
In Vietnam, they use homemade jellies with different flavors such as coconut, taro, coffee, and more. But, there is a much simpler and faster way to make it!
The ingredients to feed approximately 25-30 people consists of:
1 can of Green Grass Jelly
1 can of Black Grass Jelly
1 can of Nata de Coco
1 can of Jackfruit
1 can of Coconut
1 can of Lychee and/or Longan
(Additional) Red chestnuts
Whole Milk (or milk of preference)
Half and Half
Directions:
1. For this recipe, you will need two bowls, or one big container and one smaller container. For the first step, you will need to prepare your ingredients. Cut your jellies into bite sized cubes and jackfruit and coconut into strips. Your nata de coco should already be cubes, but if they are not, cut them as well.
2. As an additional topping, some recipes include tapioca red chestnuts. Cut the chestnuts into small cubes and add red food dye. Then coat in tapioca starch, letting it sit in the bowel before boiling it in water until it rises to the top.
3. Make sure to keep the canned fruit liquids! After putting all your ingredients into a bowl, use at least one of the fruit cans and pour it in for sweetness.
4. Pour your choice of milk into the bowl, enough to almost cover the fruits and jellies.
5. Add half and half depending on how creamy you want it to be. The more you add, the more creamy.
6. Taste it to make sure it is your desired sweetness, and if not, add more fruit liquid to your bowl!
7. Serve and taste!