I have been out foraging again, this time for chestnuts.
The chestnuts we had the other day with our first batch of Brussels Sprouts of the year were just so good that I felt inspired to go out and get some more - a lot more. This time I collected about 1200g:
I hadn't expected the chestnuts to be very good this year, because I thought the nuts might not have swollen much during the very hot Summer, but I was wrong. They are very good. And I have chosen the right time to collect them too. We had some strong winds a couple of days ago and lots of the chestnuts fell off the trees. This means that they have not been lying on the ground for long, falling prey to insect infestation or rotting.
Chestnuts are not difficult to prepare. My method is this: put the chestnuts in a saucepan and fill with enough water to cover them. Bring to the boil and turn off the heat. By the time they have cooled down enough to be comfortable to handle, the outer skins will have become soft and piable, making it easy to peel them.
Here is the end result:
Once you have removed the outer dark brown husk, the chestnuts still have an inner skin which is soft and a little fuzzy.
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| Inner skin left on |
If you have the patience to do so you can remove this skin too, but I don't (it is a BIG pfaff) and I leave the skin on. I find that it is actually beneficial to do so because it helps stop them breaking up when you cook them.
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| Inner skin removed |
Having been only very briefly boiled these chestnuts are of course not cooked, so you need to cook them somehow. We generally use them mostly as an accompaniment to Brussels Sprouts and it is convenient that they take about the same time to cook, so you can just add them into the pan of sprouts. They are also good in a beef or venison casserole, cooked long and slow. In a dish like that the chestnuts do tend to break up a bit, but that's no bad thing because they act as a thickening agent - a bit like adding cornflour- in fact you can make a type of flour with chestnuts.
Chestnuts are also often roasted, but when you roast them you don't parboil them like I have described, you leave the outer skins intact. Actually it is a good idea to make a small cut in each one to let the expanding air out during cooking. If you don't pierce the skins they are very prone to exploding in the oven!
My final thought on the matter of chestnuts is this: make sure you don't confuse the edilble "Sweet Chestnut" with the inedble "Horse Chestnut" aka "Conker".
This is the Sweet Chestnut:
And this is the Horse Chestnut. Leaves are different, seed-pods are different, but the nuts are superficially similar. The nut of the Chestnut has a pointed tip, but the Conker doesn't.
What an informative post. I've only ever had chestnuts once and that was when I was a child. I seem to remember piercing them and then roasting them. I've often looked at them in the shops but didn't really know what to do with them, but I'm definitely going to buy some now, in fact, I shall be looking out for them on my walks. I was going to ask how you knew the difference between chestnuts and conkers, but you've already answered my question.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I've had friends roast chestnuts (with an x cut on the end), but I've never seen anyone boil them. And like Jo I'm glad you gave us the tutorial on which chestnut is which. I knew horse chestnuts weren't good to eat, but wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.
ReplyDeleteIn my country we have kemiri (Aleurites moluccana) or it is well known as Indian walnut, candle nut or candle berry. The nut is look like chestnut. It have quite hard husk, thin inner skin and its shape and color of the nuts are very similar. Both of them have a very similar taste and texture. Actually I have never seen the chestnut tree.
ReplyDeleteDo you freeze them?
ReplyDeleteYes I do. I open-freeze them on a baking tray, then bag them up. That way you can lift out as many as you need, whenever you need them.
DeleteThank you.
Delete"Chestnuts roasting in an open fire" tra,la,la! Makes me think of Christmas.
ReplyDeleteEgretta, in London in the Winter time you sometimes see stalls selling chestnuts roasted on a charcoal brazier. They are sold in little paper bags - very Dickensian!
DeleteI've never noticed any sweet chestnut trees growing wild near me which is a shame.
ReplyDeleteWhat a good idea to look for chestnuts. The last two photos are really fab, would make a nice painting subject for Egretta!
ReplyDeleteWe use to boil edible chestnuts with an X-cut in the "tail" - if you boil them unless they are open and then you peel them, you should easily remove both skins; when the chestnuts are left to cool down, the inner skin sticks to the chestnut itself and it is hard to be removed...
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the Czech Republic, it is not easy to find an edible chestnut tree; they are sold in supermarkets (fresh) and on Chrismas markets (roasted) - as in London.
Dominika; Thanks for this, but can you please tell me more about your method of removing the inner skins? I do peel the chestnuts when they are still hot, yet I find that the inner skin is difficult to remove.
DeleteMaybe it is subject to the exact kind of edible chestnuts (if there is such differentiation) - when I cut them, I make a deep cut and when they are done (boiled), the X-cut is left open (the inner and outer skin just bend outside from the chestnut), and it is easier to peel them (the water and the heat helps to separate the inner skin from the nut itself. However, it is true that usually 1/5 of chestnuts are difficult to peel - so maybe it relates to storage or planting conditions..
DeleteGood luck!
Lucky you, they look fabulous. I shall keep an eye out for sweet chestnut trees, although I can't think of anywhere I could find one off-hand. I do have more conkers than I can shake a stick at. Such a shame they're not edible.
ReplyDeleteThanks for highlighting the differences between these and conkers! Because I have been confused about that too.
ReplyDeleteWhat do the chestnuts taste like? Do they actually have a typically nutty flavour? I've never had one!
Argh...I just typed a long comment (yep it's me and I just can't resist!) but it's just gone puff and disappeared.
ReplyDeleteAnyway basically I haven't found a chestnut tree yet but I'll keep looking because I adore them.
Inner skin always has to be removed in my book ;D
Great photos especially to show the differences between the chestnut and the conker!
Very clever and informative!
Wow! Wild chestnuts! What a treat! And now I know how to cook them should I come across a bounty of them, either in Texas or Michigan. Great post...can't wait to see what else you do with them.
ReplyDeleteSo, that is what that song is all about. Got it!
ReplyDeleteI love them roasted which I usually do in my wok, stirring constantly. Or, my neighbours make a real fire in their on-the-garage-roof furnace and we enjoy roasting them. We have horse-chestnuts in parks and alleys. In Croatia, the chestnuts are very popular. We have chestnut forests and people go foraging. It is interesting that these two species belong to the different families, chestnut being related to the beech.
ReplyDelete