Do you know how to make the best chestnuts? It is the number one autumn snack, and a scoop of roasted chestnuts is an ally of our cold fingers during autumn and winter walks. Do you know how to prepare the best chestnut yourself, so that it is good and "peelable" like from the street? Below, read 8+ tips for preparing chestnuts, with which you will prepare the best chestnuts.
The best chestnut! These are the secrets of the greatest chefs and little tricks with which you too will prepare the best chestnut.
The journey to preparing the best chestnuts doesn't just start in the kitchen, but...
... even when choosing chestnuts. Make sure the chestnuts are as thick as possible and without tiny holes. This betrays two things. That they have enough meat and that they are not wormy. Since chestnuts are, next to blueberries, the most harvested fruit in our forests, it is important to know how to distinguish a real chestnut from a wild chestnut. The latter are poisonous to humans and are round (with the need for a "dresser"), while the real chestnut has a flat belly on one side. The fastest way to separate them is by the wrapper. The shell of the horse chestnut has sparsely scattered spines, which is why it protects its fruit like a hedgehog, which is much more spiny.
Where to store chestnuts?
Chestnuts should be stored in the refrigerator or in the cellar. And despite the fact that chestnuts taste sweeter after a few days, chestnuts are red rather than white wine or whiskey, so it is not good to store them for too long, as they spoil quickly. Bake or cook it within two weeks at the latest, otherwise you run the risk of worms settling in it, drying out and becoming moldy (if you keep it in a plastic bag in the fridge). Just as dumplings are best the next day, the best time to prepare chestnuts is after a few days of storage.
Chestnut for the winter
Perhaps this conflicts with what we just stated above, but you can also keep chestnuts for "bad times". For such cases, you have to freeze it, which will extend its shelf life by more than three months. But before you send the chestnut to hibernate, you have to make a proper cut (more on that later) in the flat part of its belly so that it looks like a half-baked pastry. Just take it out and it will be ready for you to prepare in your favorite way.
Chestnut is like steak tartare, you can eat it raw
Did you know that you can also eat fresh chestnuts? Of course, you first have to remove the shell and the skin underneath.
READ MORE: What is the fastest way to prepare chestnuts?
Pre-preparation of chestnuts
Before roasting or cooking the chestnuts, you have to cut them with a knife. But before cutting, you have to give him a "bath" in lukewarm water for about an hour. Next comes the cutting. As you probably don't know, cutting is almost filigree work. Imagine that you are doing surgical work without being a butcher. The key is to cut into the chestnut just enough to cut through the skin, as the protective skin underneath must remain intact. Because of this, the chestnut will later peel itself, and the "meat" will be for the gods.
Preparation of chestnuts on an open fire
Preparing chestnuts is a kind of ritual, so chestnuts are often roasted over an open fire. To prepare it, you need a container or a pan with holes in the bottom, and you bake it like the masters of baking chestnuts on the streets. Stir the chestnuts from time to time during baking so that they roast evenly and get that characteristic warm yellow color inside. The fire should not be too high/too strong, and the chestnuts should be ready after 20 minutes.
Preparing chestnuts in the kitchen
If you don't have the opportunity to light a fire outside, you can also enjoy home-roasted chestnuts. The preparation is similar to the preparation outside, except that in the end you are not "passed out" from the smoke. You also need a pan or container with a bottom like Swiss cheese (read perforated), and you have to pay attention to the same things and turn the chestnuts from time to time so that they don't burn.
Boiled chestnut
Boiling chestnuts is probably the easiest form of chestnut preparation. All you have to do is drop the chestnuts into a container of water that is big enough for all the chestnuts to float in the liquid. You wait about 45 minutes to an hour and the chestnuts are ready to eat. To make peeling them as easy as possible, rinse them quickly with cold water so that they cool down a bit and so that you do not damage the pads of your fingers when peeling them. Peel them as quickly as possible, because with each further minute the peeling becomes more difficult.
Preparing chestnuts in the oven
The difficulty of preparing chestnuts in the oven can be classified between baking on the stove/stove and cooking chestnuts. Heat the oven to 220 °C, and arrange the chestnuts on the baking sheet so that they are not stacked on top of each other. The chestnuts should be baked after about 20 minutes, and in between you have to stir them a few times so that they roast evenly.
Preparing chestnuts in the microwave
We wrote about the preparation of chestnuts with the help of a microwave in the article What is the fastest way to prepare chestnuts?
So, now you know everything you need to know about making chestnuts. Now happy to go to work! Have a good run!
