Water Chestnut Pudding (Ma Tai Go)

My mom and I decided to try and make water chestnut pudding. I really didn't do much thinking and was really just helping do grunt work. My favorite part about making this recipe with my mom was learning about how her mom's water chestnut pudding was the best, and that she was sad that she never learned her mom's recipe. I think she also got her love of cooking / baking / entertaining with food from her mom. Sadly, I never got to know my grandmother on my mom's side because she died before I was born. All these years, my mom's been trying to make water chestnut puddings and it took me 31 years to figure out why.

We used this recipe:
http://cheateat.typepad.com/blog/2005/08/water_chestnut_.html

And we used fresh water chestnuts.

My mom's notes, in the margin:

8.8 oz water chestnut flour (this is the box size, so no measuring here)
33.5 oz water
10.6 oz fresh water chestnuts
7.7 oz sugar
4 tbs vegetable oil

First she had me peel the water chestnuts.

It was funny, she insisted that she cut the tops and bottoms off first because she was worried I was going to cut myself. And, I was worried she was going to cut herself. My parents' knives are getting pretty dull. I told them they needed to sharpen them - sharper knives are safer because you have more control.

And then you know what happened? She was pulling a little knife out of the drawer and accidentally poked my hand with it. "Sorry!" she said, with much guilt. Then she smiled and said, "See, isn't it good that my knives aren't that sharp?"

I chopped the chestnuts into little pieces while she pulsed the water chestnut flour in the food processor - the recipe said to sift. I guess this was just as good?

We then boiled the water chestnuts and the sugar in half of the water.

And we made a flour / water mixture with the other half of the water.

Then once the water chestnuts were boiling, we poured in half of the flour mixture and stirred it. My mom added the oil, and then we poured in the rest of the flour mixture.

Then we poured the mixture into a cake pan over a metal frame in a pot over simmering water and put the lid on.

After steaming it for about 40 minutes (I think the original recipe said 30 minutes, but there was a girl scout cookie purchase interruption) and then we took it out and let it cool. It ended up being kind of gooey after we tried to cut pieces and fry it, but it tasted pretty good and the fried parts had that yummy crunch.

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