Roasting Chestnuts with Chef John

By Tingrin3

Ingredients

• Wipe the chestnuts off with a damp towel and set them on a cutting board, flat side down.
• to safety sake, you may feel more comfortable cushioning the chestnut on a (clean) dish towel to cut the X.

Preparation

Step 1

Put the chestnuts in a baking pan with the X facing up.

It will take 20-30 minutes to roast the chestnuts. When cooked, the shells will burst open, and the chestnut will be golden brown. The tricky part is actually knowing when they are done. If you over-cook OR under-cook them, they will get hard and the inner skin will be very difficult to remove.
Now comes the hard part: peeling them! You need to peel them while they are still warm. Let them cool just enough so that you can touch them, then start peeling. Be very careful not to burn your fingers!

Be sure to buy extra, because once they are open you may well discover that some have actually turned bad and are not edible.