what can I do with chestnuts?

My neighbor gifted me with a bunch of chestnuts. I've never had them before. So except for the old seasonal song that mentions them roasting by an open fire, I don't know what to do with them. I tried one raw but wasn't too keen on that. Does anyone have some ideas to share? Recipes?

They aren't good raw, but can be cooked multiple ways. Roasted in a frypan or in the oven, they need pricking or a little X cut in the shell with a knife. Roast till the shells start to burn, peel, add salt! Boiled and then peeled, they can be candied, used to make stuffing which would be good for Thanksgiving or Christmas feasts, or dried and then ground to make flour.

Peeling them and getting the brown skin under the shell off is the tricky part, but the longer they're cooked the easier they are to peel.

Unlike most nuts they are starchy rather than a protein source.

My mother-in-law has a wonderful recipe for a chestnut and pumpkin soup.  It's a blended soup, containing nothing but chestnuts, pumpkin/squash and vegetable stock. Cream can be added, but is optional. She mainly uses canned chestnuts, so if you start from fresh they'll have to be precooked in the oven (20 minutes at 220 degrees C apparently, cut a slit in the shell before so they don't explode) and then peeled.

Use about half a peeled mid-sized winter squash or pumpkin (my mother-in-law tends to use butternut squash) for about 500 grams of peeled chestnuts. Chop the squash, put in a pot with just enough water to cover the pieces, and boil until soft. Add the chestnuts, boil another 5-10 minutes. Blend the soup and season. The recipe comes from the Ardèche region in France, where chestnuts are traditionally a staple.

I use them primarily as chicken feed.

the trouble of trying to fit one of the ultimate perennial staples into a modern diet!

they get a gentle sweetness when roasted, that may seem a little weird if you’re used to plainer starches (grains/pasta/taters), but they can great in some of the same ways. chopped with gravy on ‘em? yes, please!

chestnut stuffing is a classic.

The boiled and peeled ones can be added to a salad greens plus bacon.  They can be made into flour, though I've never done this, and then made into cakes - look for Italian origin recipes.  Just be sure to put a slit in the skins as mentioned above to avoid unhappy cleaning jobs if they explode. Also I should mention that peeling takes patience, and the nuts often split into pieces - a drag if planning to candy them.

You can spread them out in the sun and dry them, and once they're fully dry, they can be ground into flour. The flour made from them has a lovely sweet flavour.

When I visited France, a family served me chestnuts at a small gathering of farmers. I think they boiled them, in the shell, then we sat at the table, peeled them, and ate them one by one. It slowed the meal remarkably. Gave time for beautiful conversation.

My experience with chestnuts is that when you sprout them in the fridge over the winter and then plant them in your nursery bed, they're the most bestest favorite squirrel food ever and one squirrel can easily eat 100 in one day. But that's probably not how you should eat them.

this is one of my comfort foods and also the only thing i really know to do with chestnuts. https://www.justonecookbook.com/chestnut-rice-kurigohan/
i can occasionally collect chestnuts here and the peeling just defeats me. When I have collected them I've made a sweet paste, which was amazing, but it's just too much work for us (and i say this as a person who does all sorts of crazy things in the kitchen)

Diverging from the food emphasis but - put a handful in some sawdust/sand/dirt in a container in the fridge sometime in late winter and get them to sprout and then plant them in the spring!

They are delicious raw but much easier to eat if you boil or roast them briefly after cutting an x in the shell. There’s a special tool for this that I can’t recommend enough, it saves a lot of cut fingers!  I cook them either way but only enough to make them open up for easy peeling. If you watch them cook, it doesn’t take long before the x you cut peels away from the edges and the shell and inner skin both come away easily.

Leigh Tate wrote:My neighbor gifted me with a bunch of chestnuts. I've never had them before. So except for the old seasonal song that mentions them roasting by an open fire, I don't know what to do with them. I tried one raw but wasn't too keen on that. Does anyone have some ideas to share? Recipes?

I haven't done much with them, but we have a young chestnut tree in the yard (and I'd like to put in a couple more). They seem to do well in our area. I've had some canned ones that seemed a little sweet - don't know if any sugar had been added. But I liked them. A lady at church, every fall when she has chestnuts from her own trees, brings them to church dinners wrapped in bacon and roasted. That's good! I would say, experiment. They work with both sweet and savory flavors, and are more starchy than oily like most other nuts.

There are different types, which are best prepared differently:
European & American are great roasted quickly at high temperatures, after cutting through the shell.
Chinese chestnuts are starchier, typically, and best roasted slowly at low temperatures, without cutting the shell.

Below is James Nave's Chinese chestnut cooking guide:

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.

Brian Cady wrote:There are different types, which are best prepared differently:
European & American are great roasted quickly at high temperatures, after cutting through the shell.
Chinese chestnuts are starchier, typically, and best roasted slowly at low temperatures, without cutting the shell.

Below is James Nave's Chinese chestnut cooking guide:

Brian
-

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.

Thank you for explaining the difference between Chinese chestnuts, and American and European. My only experience has been with the European types. This may also explain why Chinese chestnuts are considered to be not quite as good as the other two by some people - they don't know to cook them differently.

I have done glazed chestnuts (mostly because an old friend and colleague recalled them fondly from her youth in France) and I have roasted chestnuts, though not on an open fire. I once made a chestnut volcano, a kind of a chestnut soufflé with an eggshell well for torching up some heated rum or brandy (really yummy, and not really a fire hazard, given a modicum of care). I think my favourite is Crépinette de Chataigne, packets of spiced ground pork with green onions and coarsely chopped pre-cooked chestnuts wrapped in pig's caul, if you can find it. They also work just as well as patties sautéed in butter. I have to be careful to control batch sizes because I/we will inevitably eat every last crumb as expeditiously as possible.

For he who signed off about needing to be warped to weave, I would add the stipulation that, otherwise, you would be weft behind (sorry, Elmer!)

I can’t wait to try this method! The American chestnut has been mostly made extinct by a blight that decimated the trees that once filled the woods. It is my understanding that very few American chestnut trees survive and most nuts available are, at least partially, due to the addition of Chinese genetics. I am definitely not a scientist so my knowledge is probably very limited.

I grew up in the NE: New York, Ohio, and moved into the East Coast, New England, Maryland. I'm used to going t the Farmers Market and getting fresh roasted chestnuts, or roasting them in the fireplace. It's always fun to leave one un-pierced, so it POPS!
If you have the time,  roasting, peeling and maybe slicing them into cassaroles and stir fries. Or boil them and make cream of chestnut soup. But most definitely: Turkey Stuffing on Thanksgiving, with Celeriac and red pepper slices* that's un poco picante pero dulce. *slices must be of a size to have a reasonable stuffing texture: not too big but distinct, not minced. Dammit, I've planted chestnuts all over, and here in Eugene I don't know any trees to gather from. I'll just have to buy some.

I most often make gnocchi out of them, generally with some squash and potato as well.

my parents make tasty pasta with chestnuts they smoke.

a good friend makes excellent cookies.

I’ve intended to make some chestnut whiskey, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

As a hepatitis veteran, I'll not try chestnut whisky but sign me up for about anything else chestnutty. Another memory: When we lived in Irondequoit NY, before the total suburban metasticizing, the closest store to find an ice cream sandwich at had a big chestnut tree; I'd gather what I could and roast them in the fireplace, just setting them on the firebrick.

Rick Valley wrote:I grew up in the NE: New York, Ohio, and moved into the East Coast, New England, Maryland. I'm used to going t the Farmers Market and getting fresh roasted chestnuts, or roasting them in the fireplace. It's always fun to leave one un-pierced, so it POPS!
If you have the time,  roasting, peeling and maybe slicing them into cassaroles and stir fries. Or boil them and make cream of chestnut soup. But most definitely: Turkey Stuffing on Thanksgiving, with Celeriac and red pepper slices* that's un poco picante pero dulce. *slices must be of a size to have a reasonable stuffing texture: not too big but distinct, not minced. Dammit, I've planted chestnuts all over, and here in Eugene I don't know any trees to gather from. I'll just have to buy some.

If you don't mind a trip over to the coast, I can tell you where to find some chestnuts. (If someone hasn't cut the trees down in the last twenty years since I last gathered nuts from them.) I sprouted some, right before we moved with my grandmother over to Klamath County, but they didn't survive the winters over there. I think it's too late for nuts from those trees this year - I gathered them in September. But the nuts fall on the road, and in the ditch. (The trees are high up on a steep bank above the road - not sure you could even reach them.)  My grandmother's grandparents settled near those trees in the early 1870's - the first white family to live there; she was born there in 1913. She told me that the parent tree was old when she was a little girl, and nobody knew who had planted it; the only settlers before her family moved there were single men, who her family knew, and none of them had planted it. I've wondered if there was a chestnut-tree 'Johnny Appleseed' (Johnny Chestnut?) who went around planting trees in weird places....And when you consider that there was no road up there until the late 1920's (the settlers used the river, mostly), someone had to have walked up the river, or over several hills, and stopped on the bluff above the river to plant a chestnut.  Definitely an odd place to put one.

They are European-type.  If you want to go looking, head towards Florence. Shortly before you reach Florence, you'll cross the North Fork of the Siuslaw River; turn right on the North Fork Road. Go between five and six miles up - sorry I can't be more precise. I know the house we used to live in is at seven miles up, and those trees are between one and two miles back down the road towards town. The trees will be on your left and well above the road as you go upstream, with a pasture on the right side of the road (and just before that, the river is on the right side of the road). Just a little past the trees is a low pasture on the left side of the road, then a hill with a house on the side of it, back a ways (one of my cousins lives there). It would make a good excursion! If you hit it right, you'll probably see some nuts on the road, but you might need to park (carefully - there's no shoulders) and walk the ditches looking for nuts.

Otherwise, if you want to plant trees, look at Burnt Ridge Nursery - they have really good prices for very small trees of some varieties.

Chestnuts feature in one of my favorite Autumn recipes: Pumpkin Gnocchi in a Brandy Cream Sauce.  It is a fairly simple and straight forward recipe, but to do it my way does require an air frier.  You could adapt this procedure to bake in an oven, but it will take longer.

I buy pre-shelled and -roasted chestnuts, which are just too convenient to pass up.  I can also often find them cheap at a local discount store, but even at full price (you can buy in bulk on Amazon) they are worth it.  Starting with fresh chestnuts, you would want to roast as people have described above: cut an X into the base of each nut, bake in the oven (I think 350 for up to 30 mins should do it), then cool and peel the shells off before assembling ingredients for this recipe:

Cut a small sugar pumpkin into wedges, then cut the shell and the guts off of each wedge, then cut the remaining pumpkin flesh into 1" cubes.  Toss with melted butter until coated.  Cook in a preheated air frier at 380F degrees for 18 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil a package of gnocchi until just done, skimming the gnocchi out of the water as they begin to float.  Set aside and keep warm.

Thinly slice a large shallot and sauté in a good bit of butter.  Add chiffonade of fresh sage (how many sage leaves?  A bunch.  More than you think you need) and continue cooking until wilted and just starting to brown.  You want the butter lightly brown as well.  Season well with salt, white pepper, and some grated nutmeg.  Deglaze the pan with a generous amount of good brandy or cognac.  Add a few glugs of heavy cream - not too much; the finished sauce should be pale brown, not white.  Simmer until the sauce thickens sufficiently - I like it halfway thick, but if you prefer a thinner sauce, that's fine too - then stir in a handful of grated Parmigiano cheese.  Taste and adjust seasoning (I often find myself adding more salt, pepper, and brandy).

Toss the gnocchi and a nearly equal volume of roast chestnuts in the cream sauce.  Then add the pumpkin bites, tossing them very gently into the sauce so as not to mush them completely.

Serve hot.  I typically serve preceded by a simple, green leaf salad and accompanied by a full-bodied white wine, such as a good chardonnay or viognier.  Or perhaps, if you prefer, with a sweeter wine, such as a Riesling.

Christopher Weeks wrote:My experience with chestnuts is that when you sprout them in the fridge over the winter and then plant them in your nursery bed, they're the most bestest favorite squirrel food ever and one squirrel can easily eat 100 in one day. But that's probably not how you should eat them.

Earlier this fall I was gifted with about 500 G of chestnuts. I looked up several different recipes and was intimidated by all of them. The time and attention to detail necessary in order to cook them, not to mention that they're potentially explosive was overwhelming.

So I walked out my front door and stood in the middle of the road and pitched them all into the National Forest right across the street from me. This is in the hopes that more chestnut trees will grow and help block the wind from blowing my house away.

Pan fried with gnocchi, cepes and celery leaves.
Stewed with tomatoes, mushrooms and herbs.
Dried, ground and made into fresh pasta with cream and smoked salmon.
Softened in risotto with squash and spinach.
If you have the time and patience to prepare them, and if you have a few trees nearby, sweet chestnuts really are an incredible free bounty to be celebrated each year.

Tonight, I ate the first Chestnuts we have harvested from our trees!

They were prepared the simple way of scoring the shells with a knife, soaking them in water, then baking for about an hour.
Shelling them was mostly easy, though they were a bit crumbly and some stuck to the shells.

These are from European x Japanese hybrids, or maybe just European (my record keeping is .... not so good).

To me, they had the texture of a baked potato but more firm... or maybe a dry winter squash.
The flavor is something like a winter squash or sweet potato - but uniquely different.

I enjoyed them plain, and they were even better with a little sea salt.
I think they would be good for either sweet or savory dishes.

They are not like a typical Nut so much -- more like bread/potato/squash.
I think the next batch we will boil, as the removing from the shell might be easier I think.

Definitely my kind of food!

Jon Ashley Mills wrote:Pan fried with gnocchi, cepes and celery leaves.

What are "cepes"?

George Ingles wrote:Tonight, I ate the first Chestnuts we have harvested from our trees!...  They are not like a typical Nut so much -- more like bread/potato/squash.

No, whereas most tree nuts are largely fats and proteins, chestnuts are starchy.  They also have good fiber content compared to other tree nuts.  I've read that chestnuts' nutrition profile is similar to that of brown rice.  This is why permies get excited about chestnuts as a perennial tree crop that could serve as a dietary staple.  If only we could grow a whole bunch more of them.  And defeat the chestnut weevil, which would have a field day in this hypothetical permie utopia.

There are, of course, other trees that already fill the same role of perennial calorie crop, but they are all tropical species like breadfruit and plantain.  Chestnuts are cool-temperate trees.

Regarding their role as a staple starch, several posters above have noted the European tradition of making pasta from chestnut flour.  While I've never tasted it, I would be excited to try.  But I'm not rushing to spend my time grinding up dried chestnuts, either.  Unless and until chestnut flour becomes widely and inexpensively available, it seems to me that roasted chestnuts incorporated whole into recipes are perfectly tasty and a lot less work.

Nota bene: upon a very cursory review of Amazon, I see imported Italian chestnut flour for just over $1/oz.  This is 5x the cost of the cheapest almond flour I see for sale, and more than 10x the cost of the cheapest organic whole wheat flour.

Matthew Nistico wrote:
What are "cepes"?

Boletus edulis, aka penny buns, porcini, ceps


Chestnuts are also delicious boiled and sauted with onions and celery served as a vegetable, chopped cooked with diced onion, celery, tart green apple and used as a stuffing in chicken/turkey.

A Japanese friend gave me a jar of whole cooked chestnuts preserved in a light syrup that I eat as a sweet.

The French prepare a delicious confection called marron glacé that I have never attempted to make myself which is like a dry version of the chestnuts in syrup that my friend gave me.

Chestnuts purée is another method of preparing chestnuts - savoury for stuffing and sweet in desserts.

I don’t know whether the local chestnut trees are European or Chinese but they grow well in our climate and there are many found in parks and on the roadside where we can gather the nuts in autumn.

This is a great thread and making me sad again that chestnuts don't seem to like Skye much - I was hoping for good coppice firewood and sweet staple nuts, hey ho.
I remember as a student in London (UK) walking through Kensington gardens and collecting chestnuts in their prickly shells off the grass. There were lots of mature trees there, probably still are, about now (or slightly later in the year) would be the time to check for them. I quite like the nuts as a raw nibble in moderation.

The only downside to having chestnuts as your primary staple crop would be that once in a while, the crop fails. Best to have several strings to your staple crop bow! But they are definitely worth having if you have room for large trees.

My favourite dessert is chestnut puree - roast chestnuts, remove skins, cook them with milk and sugar, flavour with rum and possibly vanilla, put them through a potato ricer, top with whipped cream. Mmmmm.....

Chestnut torte is also very good.

I also like using chestnut flour to make cookies.

I've seen recipes for chestnut noodles.

I've never experimented with savoury dishes, chestnuts are so expensive here they're a special occasion sort of thing.  My dad talks about using them as a meat replacement when he was a kid.  I planted two chestnut trees this spring, sadly it will be a long time before I experience a glut of chestnuts!

I was raised with roated chestnuts on street corners in Nice, France, my mother made the best cake. And in my 11 yr old Food Forest I have raised 2 European Chesnut trees in aperfect experiment that Nitrogen fixer has helped one grow 4x faster than the other one, so hopefully I will get chestnuts 4x sooner and not wait 40 yrs. Utah Valley Permaculture Classroom Gardens & Greenhouse www.permaculturedesignschool.org utahvalleypermaculture@gmail.com  Sorry so busy trying to save the planet and not much time left to check this site.