Rose Tub Tim Grob Recipe

This rose tub tim grob recipe is a recreation of a delicious dessert I ate in Thailand.

Also known as 'pomegranate seeds' or 'red rubies', tub tim grob is a delicious, refreshing Thai dessert made with water chestnuts, tapioca flour, syrup and coconut milk.

It's often served as is, but also sometimes served with sliced fruits like jackfruit, or as a topping for modern desserts like loaded shaved ice.

The most traditional way to turn the water chestnuts red is to use red food dye – but after trying a rose-flavoured version in Bangkok where the actual tapioca-coated chestnut chunks were flavoured with rose, I decided to use rose syrup instead. It does two things: dyes the chestnuts pink, and flavours them with rose, too.

From what I've heard, it's also common to use sala syrup to colour and flavour the chestnuts in the same way. In fact, any flavoured, coloured syrup will do.

If you can get fresh raw water chestnuts, use those. They're absolutely delicious, crisp, sweet and juicy. If not, tinned-in-water water chestnuts will do.

I also used my tian ob – a Thai culinary herbal candle – to smoke and flavour the coconut milk. I also use this candle in my khanom kleeb lamduan recipe. It's totally optional, though.

It's also more traditional to serve tub tim grob with ice cubes or chunky crushed ice, but I like serving mine with fluffy shaved ice.

You can also watch me make this on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes:

Ready? Let's go.

Ingredients for Water Chestnut Rubies

1 x 567g tin of whole water chestnuts in water, drained and chopped into chunky cubes (about ____g)
50ml rose syrup
120g tapioca flour
Ice water (for cooling)

Ingredients for Coconut Sauce

1/2 can (200ml) full fat coconut milk
100ml water
Pinch of salt
1 tian ob candle (optional)

Ingredients for Soaking Syrup

350ml water
200g caster sugar
1 pandan leaf

To Serve:

Shaved ice

Method:

1. Put the chopped water chestnuts in a medium-sized bowl and pour in the syrup. Gently toss to evenly coat and set aside (you can give them a bit of a turn every now and again while you do the next bit).

2. make the syrup. In a saucepan, bring the water, sugar and pandan leaf to a boil, and boil for five minutes. Turn off the heat, pour into a heatproof bowl and set aside. You can discard the pandan leaf at this stage, but I like to keep it in the syrup for extra flavour (but you don't eat the pandan leaf – it's too fibrous). Rise out the 'syrup saucepan', half-fill it with water, and set it aside for boiling in a minute.

3. While the syrup is cooling, prepare the smoked coconut milk: stir the coconut milk, water and salt together in a pot, place a small foil-lined bowl in the middle of the pot, and pop the tian ob candle in the bowl. Light the candle, wait for it to burn for a few seconds, blow it out and immediately cover the pot with a lid to trap the smoke.

4. Scoop your now dyed and flavoured water chestnuts into a large bowl, discarding the excess syrup. Add half the tapioca flour, toss together well, toss the rest of the flour in, then put the now-coated chestnuts into a sieve over another bowl and sift off the excess flour. Discard the excess flour.

5. Bring the water in the saucepan to a boil, and boil the tapioca flour-coated water chestnuts for about five minutes, or until the flour coating goes translucent and they float. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and drop them in your iced water for a few minutes before putting them in your bowl of pandan syrup to soak and cool together. If you have a small saucepan, you may have to do this in a couple of stages to avoid overcrowding the pan.

6. When you're ready to serve, shave your ice, pack it in a bowl, spoon over generous spoonfuls of tub tim grob with a little syrup, followed by a few spoonfuls of your coconut milk, and serve. Add extras like chopped soft fruits if you like.

Enjoy, and have fun.