Chestnutting

Today the kids and I went "chestnutting" or "chestnut hunting" as my daughter calls it. When I grew up in Munich we only had horse chestnuts growing around us and I only knew sweet chestnuts as "Maroni" roasted on the street stalls.

Here in Bracknell it is difficult to through a stone (not that I would) without hitting a sweet chestnut tree. They are actually quite easy to tell apart. The sweet chestnut is more "edgy". The leaves have ragged edges and the shells of the chestnuts are very spiky. The horse chestnut is much more rounded.

I love the taste of sweet chestnut - for me it is the very essence of autumn, winter and Christmas. The are brilliant mixed into brussel sprouts with some bacon, they make great stuffing and I have even made chestnut ice cream.

I tend to steam them and the freeze them so that I can take small amounts as and when I need them.

This year seems to be an amazing year for chestnuts. Today we only spent 10 minutes with one tree and our loot was quite something:

In order to steam them I cut them in half

Always check them and discard any that have a worm in them

Only keep the good ones

Once they are halved they get steamed for about 15 minute

If you are lucky then some might simply fall out of their skin

When they are all peeled they are ready to be used or frozen

I already used some of them to thicken today's gravy, but the rest will get frozen...

Let me know if you have any nice, interesting or unusual recipes for chestnuts.