What to bake and cook with chestnuts?
Everyone has heard of the chestnut trees in the Place Pigalle. Luckily, you don't have to travel to Paris to try these unique nuts.
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For a while, I had trouble placing chestnuts on my internal culinary flavor map. On the one hand, they are sweet like fruit (botanists would say yes, so I have to end my analogy here), but on the other hand, they are just as mealy and bland as boiled beans. In addition, they are most reminiscent of nuts with a shell that must be destroyed to get inside.
For a long time, chestnuts in Poland seemed to me something completely exotic. They were difficult to obtain, and those sold in brine in shops selling international products were prohibitively expensive. A few years ago, a major French retailer launched its own brand of chestnut cream to sell raw horse chestnuts a year later. However, when I looked into my oldest cookbook from 1904, it turned out that Lutsina Chverchakevichova had already served a recipe for sugared chestnuts. She advised serving them with baked apples, legumin (meaning semolina in milk) and nuts.
How to prepare chestnuts?
Most often, chestnuts are simply baked on a fire. On the streets you can find carts with chestnuts, which are sold in paper tubes. The aftertaste of toasted rind, soot on the fingers, eating warm chestnuts on an autumn walk make roasted chestnuts absolutely unique. You can also bake chestnuts over a fire in a special frying pan with holes in the bottom. Baked in the oven, they will be delicious, but will be completely devoid of this nostalgic-romantic component. Fortunately, without soot, they are better suited for further processing.
chestnut pan
Before baking, you need to carefully select the chestnuts and throw away all those that show signs of mold - there will be several of them in each package, so you need to be vigilant. When buying chestnuts by weight, choose large, heavy, non-cracking and healthy chestnuts. Before placing in the oven, carefully cut the chestnut skin at the base to form a cross. As a result, they won't burst when baked. Bake for about 30 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius, turning them over and over again. After 20 minutes of baking, it is worth checking if the chestnuts are burning. Their skin should be well baked, and the inside should be completely soft.
What to cook with chestnuts?
You can simply eat roasted chestnuts warm. They are very satiating and increase thirst. They can also be crushed and added to the sauce. It is enough to add 1 cup of chestnut puree to 1 cup of meat or vegetable broth, season with salt, pepper and a little cream. Chestnut sauce goes well with roast pork, chicken and turkey. You can also add whole roasted chestnuts to other vegetables (carrots, parsley, onions, peppers, tomatoes) to make a vegetable stew flavored with rosemary. You can also add chestnuts to your favorite creamy mushroom sauce.
How to make chestnut cream?
Chestnut cream is the French answer to the Italian chocolate hazelnut cream. It is very sweet, it can be spread on pancakes, hash browns, toast, sandwiches, and also layered with carrot cake and brownies. Chestnut cream has one serious drawback: it quickly becomes moldy, so it can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than 7-10 days.
Making chestnut butter is very simple. Place 600 g of roasted and peeled chestnuts in a saucepan. Pour in 1¾ cups of water, add 1 cup of sugar and a vanilla bean cut in half. Bring everything to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes, until a thick sauce forms in the pan. Drain the chestnuts, reserving the syrup, and discard the vanilla pod. Put the chestnuts in a food processor and process, adding the syrup so that the cream has the consistency of butter. Transfer to a clean and dry jar and store in the refrigerator.
Chestnut cream, although very sweet, goes well with a completely salty dish. Prepare buckwheat pancakes, grease them with chestnut cream, goat cheese and sprinkle with walnuts. This is going to be a simple and delicious appetizer that sounds more complicated than it actually is.
The simplest recipe for pancakes belongs to my neighbor, Mrs. Nina. Mix 40 g of yeast with 2 cups of warm milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar, wait 5 minutes until the yeast starts to work and the surface is covered with a film. Add ½ cup wheat flour, 1¼ cup buckwheat flour, a pinch of salt, 1 egg and 50g melted butter. We mix everything until the mass resembles thick sour cream. Cover with a cloth and put in a warm place to swell for 30 minutes. Fry in vegetable or ghee over low heat until golden brown. It is best to apply the dough with a spoon previously dipped in water - then the dough does not stick to the spoon, but you need to apply it carefully, because it can splatter. Spread the finished pancakes with a thin layer of chestnut cream, then spread them with goat's cottage cheese or place pieces of goat roll. Sprinkle chopped nuts on top.
Besides pumpkin, chestnuts are the quintessential autumn flavor. Even if they don't become a staple in our pantry, they can easily add variety to our usual lunchtime dishes. They are sure to please all guests, because chestnuts sound very elegant.
cookbook
