Chestnuts

By Hklbrries

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. One sure sign is baskets of chocolaty brown chestnuts in the produce section of local grocery stores. Chestnuts might be unfamiliar territory to some Americans, but in France and Italy it wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

“For Christmas, the foods you buy are oranges and chestnuts,” Tullia Barbanti said. “It’s tradition.”

Barbanti, who teaches Italian cooking and sells her own pasta sauce in Spokane, has fond memories of chestnuts from her childhood in Italy. “My daddy put them in his wine glass,” she remembers. “He put them in one at a time, like a dip.” She also recalled sweeping the hearth in front of the fire, and lining up 10 to 15 chestnuts to roast. “Turn them carefully. With heat they open.”

The most important thing to remember, Barbanti said, is “they need to have a cut, so they don’t blow up.” Unlike other nuts, chestnuts contain a lot of moisture, which turns to steam when they are heated. A small “X” or straight line carved through the outer shell will allow the steam to escape and make the chestnut easier to peel. The easiest way to cook them is to roast them in the oven, she says, but chestnuts can also be boiled for about 20 minutes. “It has to be soft like a potato,” she said. “They are very nutritious.”

“Italians gravitate to chestnuts at Christmas,” agreed Carl Naccarato, owner of Cassano’s Italian Grocery store. They are popular throughout the Mediterranean, where street vendors sell roasted chestnuts in newspaper cones, he said.

“In France chestnuts are often candied,” Naccarato said. “Italians go for the pure product.” As people go house to house to pay their regards at Christmas, they might have a glass of wine and some roasted chestnuts as a snack.

Cassano’s sells fresh chestnuts and cooked nuts in a jar, which are softer and can be used in stuffing for turkey. “Roasted ones are firmer with a nuttier flavor,” Naccarato said.

Some of the chestnuts appearing on local store shelves are imported from Europe and China, but a good portion are from area growers. Chestnut grower Steve Jones of Colossal Orchards produces 40,000 to 60,000 pounds of chestnuts per year – many of which end up in Spokane – on his 16-acre farm just north of Yakima in Selah, Wash.

“You can put them in just about anything – soups, stews, add them to Brussels sprouts or broccoli. They impart a nice nutty flavor to anything you cook,” Jones said. Cooked chestnuts can be chopped up and added to cookie batter or ice cream, sprinkled on baked squash or added to stuffing.

“The biggest challenge is getting them peeled,” he said. Jones explained that a chestnut has two shells: a hard outer shell and a thin inside coating, called a pellicle, which is bitter and should be removed.

Jones recommends scoring an “X” in the shell (on the flat side), covering them halfway with water and boiling them for 15 to 20 minutes. The water loosens the skin, making the chestnuts easier to peel. “Peel them while they are warm,” he advised.

Some chestnut lovers eat them raw. “They’re a little crunchy to me,” said Jones, who notes that cooking the chestnuts also makes them sweeter, since the starches convert to sugar. Because chestnuts are high in fiber and lower in fat than other nuts (one-third the fat of cashews and peanuts), they make a great choice for diet-conscious nut lovers. They are also gaining popularity with people on gluten-free diets, because chestnut flour can be used for baking.

Lee Williams, who owns Trails End chestnut farm in Moses Lake, has discovered several uses for dried chestnuts over the years. “There aren’t too many ways in the last 2,000 to 3,000 years they haven’t been prepared,” he said, laughing. Williams sells beer chips made from dried, roasted chestnuts that can be used in place of barley to make gluten-free beer. The chips come in light, medium or dark roast and have a nutrient content similar to malted barley. “When you roast it you get a sweet, chocolate aroma,” says Williams, who sells the beer chips to home brewers and a few commercial breweries.

If you’re looking to cut back on caffeine, Williams sells a coffee substitute made from ground, roasted chestnuts that is caffeine, additive and gluten-free (some coffee substitutes are made from roasted grains that aren’t suitable for people on gluten-free diets). “If you look at it you couldn’t tell the difference between that and coffee,” he said.

Even with the endless possibilities, Williams prefers to keep things simple when it comes to preparing chestnuts. He makes a 3/4-inch cut around the shell with a utility knife and then puts them into the microwave for 60 seconds. “They pop right open and they stay moister than oven-roasting,” said Williams, who likes to dip the chestnuts in a little butter. He recommends storing fresh chestnuts in the refrigerator so they don’t mold, and taking them out 48 to 72 hours before you plan to use them, which allows them to become sweeter.

If you’re tempted to scavenge some of those chestnuts you see rolling around on local sidewalks, you are better off leaving them to the squirrels.

“Most likely those are Buckeye or horse chestnuts. They’re not really edible and there’s a toxic factor to it,” he says. You can tell the difference because the bur (outer casing) of a true sweet edible chestnut is so spiny you can’t pick it up without gloves, Williams says; the ornamental ones are just bumpy.

You can find fresh chestnuts at most local grocery stores or order from online retailers.

Recipes in collection: Oven-Roasted Chestnuts; Chestnut and Apple Soup; Chestnut Brownies

Ingredients

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Preparation

Step 1

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