Processing Chestnuts - How do you do it?

I'm still trying to figure out how to process chestnuts well.

They sell them in stores shelled but fully intact. How do you even do that?

As it is we usually end up just cutting them in half and scooping out the meat with a spoon, but if I can figure out how to shell them my family will devour them.

l, are you saying you can buy them raw, intact and shelled? i think at home scale, cutting an x n the shell before roasting is one of the better options, but wouldn’t give you raw shelled nuts. the shell peels back from the cut when heated. for shelling at commercial scale the thing i’ve seen in use (in the states, but maybe similar across the pond, is like a little cannon that fires the nuts at ‘just the right speed’ into a block of wood, which pops the shell off. not sure how to replicate that one at home!

Not raw, they sell them shelled, intact, and cooked - ready for popping into your mouth as a snack.

I get frustrated every year that we have a wonderful chestnut tree but the family buys the ones from the store anyway... because they're easier to eat.

I did try cutting an x and roasting. I also tried the same with boiling. It's really challenging cutting through the shell without slicing the entire meat in half.

For the chestnut gun, do they fire them after they're cooked or before?

uncooked, but they may be dried slightly to pull the nut away from the shell - the company i’ve seen using this method uses it mostly for chestnuts to be ground for flour. for cutting the x, i find running a sharp serrated knife (one of my favorites knives for the job is a bread knife) over the shell sufficient. you don’t need to put anywhere near enough pressure on the nut to cut it in half. just a quick ‘zhooop’ across the top, quarter turn, another ‘zhooop’ and you’re good. i have had a lot of practice with this method, but i think it should doable even if you haven’t. just enough pressure to get through the shell.

I'll try to find a different knife for the task. An in-law might have some serrated knives. I was using a regular sharp cooking knife. I tried a few different levels of depth cuts from just barely scoring. I often got a little bit of peel back from the X cut, but not enough to remove the shell without clobbering the meat into debris. I may just be clumsy.

I did watch liziqi doing this in one of her youtube videos:  

She looks to be using a razor blade to shell them prior to cooking. Ultimately this might be the only way to produce the golden ticket for my family. I might need some of those knife-proof gloves.

I find cutting an X into the shell to be tedious and difficult too, so when I roast chestnuts I do it a bit differently. I just cut off the end of the nut that has the paler shell color. On most chestnuts, that takes off a small bit of nut with the shell but not too much. It goes much quicker than cutting an X, and achieves similar results.

Search for "Chestnut Clip". Not going to link the one we bought since it claims to do other things besides putting an "X" in chestnuts. Works, and much safer than a knife!

How timely!   I had my first roasted chestnuts this week and I'm so intigued!    I considered ordering chestnut trees, but my small urban lot is sort of maxed out with LARGE tree space lol.   Then I've been wondering about the whole roasting/ processing thing.   Thanks for posting this.. following with interest!

I've been experimenting as the chestnuts come down.

So far I've had a lot better luck shelling them pre-cooking than I expected.

I usually just use my shoe to kick them out of their spike jacket. Then we soak them overnight and remove any floaters.

The new process has been using a sharp, heavy knife to cut off the hard shell. I find that if you set the flatter side of the chestnut on the cutting board, you can get a good bite into the "cap" of the nut and cut it carefully so it doesn't slip. Once you get a section cut away it peels fairly easily with the knife. I don't know about other varieties, but the kind we grow have a difficult to remove inner layer that we call "shibukawa" in Japanese. I'm not sure the English name for it. I've found it comes off most easily with a vegetable peeler.

The remaining chestnut meat boils fairly easily. Add a little sugar if you like. Soaking again in water before boiling, or doing several repetitions of boiling and refilling with new water helps remove any more astringency. These days I find I'm pretty sensitive to the astringency in tree nuts.

Anyway the result is easy to eat chestnut meat. It gets a little more crumbly than I hoped, so I'm going to try to perfect my cooking timing to stop boiling before it crumbles apart.

In the interior of Corsica the standard means is to smoke them. I plan to try this as soon as we start getting a decent harvest again, which might be a few years as the big tree carked it last summer :-(

Here's a suberb little video about the chestnut forest in Corsica and how it's managed:

As it is chestnut season, we receive chestnuts in addition to having our own... So many chestnuts, what to do with them all?

I decided to make bread.

I'm a novice baker and my oven sucks, it does not heat evenly at all and it's very small. Ovens are not a standard part of kitchens in Japan like they are where I grew up in the USA.

In this case we received the chestnuts boiled in the shell. So I cut them into quarters and then spooned the meat out into a food processor, processed for less than a minute and got a very slightly damp powder. It mixed well into the flour with a whisk.

The high portion of chestnut seems to have made the rise rather small compared to previous 100% flour breads. The taste was very decent, strong and nutty. It's certainly a great way to eat hordes of chestnuts if you have a glut.

I found a recipe on Yummly and adapted it a little bit. https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Chestnut-Bread-530922

Recipe:
Ingredients
4 SERVINGS
200 grams strong flour
250 grams dried chestnuts
15 grams yeast (fresh brewer’s)
1 Tbsp. oil
1 Tbsp. honey
two pinches of salt
50 mL and 130 mL warm water

Directions
   Grind the dried chestnuts finely.
   Dilute the yeast with 50 milliliters of warm water and the honey, cover and let it rest for 10 minutes.
   Kneading by hand method: Preheat the oven to 190°C.
   Sift the flour with the ground chestnuts in a bowl, make a well in the center.
   Place the yeast in the well and sprinkle the flour with 2 pinches of salt.
   Begin kneading the dough with the flours, incorporating 130 to 150 milliliters of warm water a little at a time, add the oil and continue kneading for 5 minutes.
   Shape the dough into a ball, cover with a damp cloth and let it rest in a warm area until it has doubled in volume.
   Punch down the dough delicately, and using your hands shape the loaves, coat the base of the rolls in flour, and place them on a wax paper-lined baking sheet.
   Cover the loaves with a kitchen towel and let them rise for 50 to 60 minutes.
   Bake for approximately 30 minutes.

I had lots of chestnuts.


I made them into powder.


I mixed them with bread flour.



I added salt.


I added yeast, hot water, and honey


I mixed the things


I made a ball and added oil, then kneaded it for a long time.


I took this ball, separated it into two loaves and let it rise.


Then I baked it in the oven for about 30 minutes - since the oven heats unevenly I had to stop it just short since one loaf was starting to become overly brown.


I successfully made two loaves of bread.

I got a bit fed up with peeling chestnuts, so I got this machine, unfortunately from a UK/French website.

https://www.tompress.com/A-10011488-epepineuse-presse-tomate-et-fruit-manuelle-fonte-et-inox-reconditionnee.aspx

They do electric ones too, but I tend to search for manual alternatives to any machine.  It does a great job with pulping tomatoes, soft berries, etc but also with cooked chestnuts.

I feed the cooked chestnuts into the machine, it will come one side as a puree, and the debris out the other side.  I can then dry or freeze that pulp in small batches.  I use it in bread, cakes, cookies, soups, stuffing, you name it.

I am sure that a similar machine can be found in the US.  Beware though that many models are made out of plastic and not strong enough to deal with chestnuts, only soft fruits.  The one on that link is made of cast iron and stainless steel.  It changed my attitude come chestnut season!

Now all I need is a decent hand machine to score the chestnut prior to cooking!

Did a quick search after posting (see above) and got quite excited!  I think hubby is going to be in the workshop this afternoon!!

The "X" method feels risky to me- an accident waiting to happen. I've taken to using a small wooden cutting board or large wood spatula- something flat- and giving each one a quick thwack. It's not uniform but fast, safe and effective. If you want whole, perfect nuts, it might not be ideal.

I hear you M.  But accidents are waiting to happen any day, anywhere, anytime.  I almost cut my finger off with a simple kitchen knife.  Just be careful, avoid long repetitive actions and keep it away from children's reach.

As I speak, hubby got so excited that he is at this very moment drilling a hole through a knife.  I will keep you guys posted and I'll be sure to keep my fingers out of the way!

Just wanted to add a method I've found for easy shelling of sweet chestnut (castanea sativa) found wild in the PNW. After trying many ways, this seems to work the best - easiest and fastest for preparing the nuts for long term storage.

1. Instead of using a knife to score, use a sharp kitchen SCISSORS to cut an X on the bottom of the nut. There is more control with the knife and less accidents. Make sure you cut all the way through to the inside. I've found cutting the bottom instead of the sides makes the skins (outer and inner) much easier to peel later.

2. Have a pot of near boiling water ready. It doesn't have to be boiling, just hot.

3. Drop a few of the bottom scored chestnuts into the hot water for a few minutes. This will soften the skin, and I'm guessing it may kill any worms/parasites due to the high temperature.

4. Using a slotted spoon take each chestnut out and place into a vessel with a kitchen towel. Use the towel to scrub the outer hard shell and inner layer off of the nut. If heated long enough, the inner skin will rub right off. The kitchen towel also helps handle the hot nut. If the inner skin is still stuck, drop the nut back in the water for about a minute - this works quite well to loosen the skin and then you can rub it off. *Note: if the nut cools too long, the inner brown skin will be harder to get off. Which is why it is important to do it in batches (see next step).

5. Do this in batches of 3-5 or however many you can do before they cook too long. You want to get to that sweet spot where they are cooked long enough to get the skin off/not too long as for the nut to get mushy and break.  You'll get a rhythm of how many to drop in as others are cooking as long as you make sure you know which ones were first.

6. Let the nuts dry.

7. At this point you can roast them, but since I am storing I chop or leave whole, vacuum seal in bags, mark dates and freeze. Sources say this lasts anywhere from 9 mos-1 yr in the freezer. I've had luck with a 1 year storage all the way until next chestnut season.

I suppose you could also can them or freeze dry, but I am not familiar with those methods.

Hope this helps anyone maybe.  I call it the "path to least resistance". Chestnuts rejoice!

Maylin Moon wrote:Just wanted to add a method I've found for easy shelling of sweet chestnut (castanea sativa) found wild in the PNW. After trying many ways, this seems to work the best - easiest and fastest for preparing the nuts for long term storage.

Thanks for posting this Maylin! Great idea, and welcome to permies!

I am finding this all very educational.  I have some American Chestnut trees on the front lawn, but the fungus dropped the larger fruiting trees.  I need to cut back the lower volunteers and work to feed the trees to reduce the impact of the root fungus that kills them all so quickly.  In New York State, there is a project ongoing where a resistant variety has been developed using natural selection instead of genetic modification.  That project is really getting going and I hope to be able to plant some resistant progeny before I leave this plane of existence.

On the other hand, I found that what I bought from the State Soil and Water as black walnuts turned out to be Chinese Chestnuts.  They have been growing for nearly 20 years now and are producing good harvests.  I really hate to drop them, but may have to make the hard choice between producing invasive trees and the native variety.

Anyhow, just a couple of notes on the preceding posts.  The astringency noted in tree nuts is related to tannin in the nut.  Acorns are quite high in this.  I found that removal of the skin of the nuts will remove a large portion of the tannin (the dark color is a clue).  I remember a lake in NE Texas where the water is so black divers cannot literally see their hand anywhere in front of them.  It was a location of search after the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster and although the most technically advanced methods known were used, not one piece of the shuttle was found, even though pieces were found on either side of the debris path over the lake.  That lake was full of tannin.

For those who wish to easily carve an "X" into chestnuts prior to roasting, here is a link for such knives/tools.  
https://knifelover.com/best-chestnut-knife/  

I like the curved knife, but the nut-cracker looking tool looks more efficient and safer for the accident prone.

I loved the bread recipe, I bake regularly and may use some of this year's harvest for a loaf or two.

I second Maylin’s suggestion of using scissors. I saw that on the website of an Italian chestnut vendor, and it’s Sooooooo much easier and safer than a knife. You straddle the nut with the scissor while it’s resting on a board.  I also learned to soak them overnight before roasting.  So soak, then just one cut with scissors, then roast in oven, and they pop open for easy shelling.

I’ve been getting some local chestnuts from the farmer’s market near us here in NE Tennessee. This is how I prepare them:

1. Put the nut on its flatish side and cut a slit in the top of the nut with a serrated knife.
2. Place all nuts in a pot with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil then remove from heat.
3. Using a slotted spoon, place nuts on a baking sheet.
4. Bake at 400 degrees F for 10-15 min.
5. Place the nuts in a towel and wrap. Leave for 15 min
6. Peel while still warm and enjoy!

Here are chestnut flakes for sale, from Ardeche France: https://www.bulkeez.com/collections/organic-cereals/products/organic-chestnut-flakes
Interesting chestnut product, with a long storage life and they fit into a breakfast bowl well. They have a mild taste, different than what I expected. The weights of the ones I bought were mislabeled. the '5 pounds', actually weighed 2 kilograms.

"Ardèche is the largest chestnut-producing department in France, with nearly 5,000 tonnes a year. Awarded AOC status in 2006, the Ardèche chestnut is used in many specialities, from the celebrated candied chestnuts to the famous chestnut purée, by way of chestnut liqueur, the cake Lou Pisadou, chestnut soup and chestnut flour bread.
To know more about this mythical nut and its nutritional value, and the world of chestnut growers, go to the House of the Chestnut (Maison du Châtaignier) at Saint-Pierreville, in the Ardèche Mountains Regional Nature Park, where three floors of exhibits will reveal the world of the chestnut.
There is also a museum dedicated to the history of the chestnut, from the Middle Ages to today, in the centre of the medieval town of Joyeuse.
From mid-October to mid-November the emblematic nut of Ardèche is honoured during the traditional chestnut festivals, the Castagnades, at Antraigues-sur-Volane, Désaignes, Joyeuse, Meyras, Saint-André-Lachamp, Privas and Saint-Pierreville."
https://www.france-voyage.com/gastronomy/ardeche-chestnuts-6.htm
https://en.ardeche-guide.com/sites-to-visit/museums-sites/chestnut-house-152846
I hope to learn more about the making of these chestnut flakes. Does anyone know more about it?
Happy Holidays
Brian
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How to Cook Chinese Chestnuts – J. M. Nave
If you have some favorite way of cooking Chinese chestnuts, I'm not trying to change that. I'm just trying to show people how you can best bring out the flavors of Chinese nuts and get better textures. Cooking Chinese nuts the same way you would cook European or American nuts is not optimal because Chinese nuts are much denser. And if you are cooking Chinese nuts optimally, you don't need to cut the shell. Low and slow is the optimal way to cook Chinese chestnuts.
The most interesting way, and most common way, to cook chestnuts in China is to roast chestnuts at low temperatures (240F or less) for extended periods of time (60 minutes or more). Roasting at lower temperatures for longer periods of time breaks down the dense Chinese nut and fully releases the flavors in the nut. It also gives the nut a softer texture, more like an American or European chestnut. A  Chinese chestnut that is cooked at 350F or above for short periods of  time (30 minutes or less), will normally have a burnt or hard exterior and an almost uncooked interior. The flavor will not be well developed. Cooking Chinese chestnuts in this manner has led to the common belief in the US that Chinese nuts are inferior to American or European chestnuts. American and European chestnuts that are cooked at high temperatures for short periods or time will be mostly cooked and falling apart and the flavors will be well developed. Because Chinese chestnuts are much denser than American and European chestnuts, they benefit from slower more thorough cooking at lower temperatures. Their density also gives Chinese nuts greater versatility in cooking. For example, Chinese chestnuts can be used in many dishes such as soups and stews without falling apart.
To fully understand how the density of the nut impacts cooking, it may be helpful to compare cooking chestnuts to cooking beef. Different cuts of beef have different textures and densities. Tenderloin (so named because of the soft texture of the meat) is quite different than brisket. Tenderloin may be cooked at high temperatures for short periods of time. The result is beef that is soft and full of flavor. Brisket on the other hand is a much denser cut of meat. Cooking it at high temperatures for short periods of time will result in a burnt exterior and an uncooked interior. The meat will also be tough and difficult to chew. To properly cook brisket requires cooking for longer periods of time at lower temperatures to allow the heat to penetrate to the interior of the meat. This results in a much more flavorful brisket with a softer texture. Chinese chestnuts are the brisket of the chestnut world. They are exceptionally good eating when properly cooked.
Another benefit to cooking Chinese chestnuts at lower temperatures is that the shells do not need to be cut. In the US, chestnut shells are normally cut when nuts are to be roasted to allow heated water vapor to escape. If the shell is not cut, the expanding water vapor will cause the shell to explode. But when a Chinese chestnut is cooked at 240F or below, it will not normally explode because the buildup of water vapor is very slow and it can escape without exploding the shell. This also results in another benefit. When the shell is not cut, the cooked nut retains more moisture which results in a better texture for the nut. To some extent, not cutting the shell also results in a partial steaming of the nut. It’s simply a better way to cook Chinese chestnuts. Which brings up the point that Chinese chestnuts can also be cooked by boiling for at least 60 minutes. Boiling is not optimal for American or European chestnuts because the nuts tend to get very soggy and fall apart which also makes them difficult to peel. Because Chinese nuts are denser, they don’t absorb much water and tend not to fall apart after boiling, which also makes them as easy to peel after boiling as they are before boiling.

Great 15 minute video on an Ohio USA chestnut co-operative: https://vimeo.com/682907241
Wonderful 10 minute video on 600-year old Corsican chestnut orchard: https://vimeo.com/240756001
Interesting 12-minute video on Twisted Tree Chestnut (& more) Nursery: https://vimeo.com/210987984