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Chestnuts are in the Fruit Share this week! My husband, a self-taught pro-chestnut roaster who has been continuously perfecting his art, wrote this sweet blurb on roasting these delicious nuts:
My family has experimented with several different ways of roasting chestnuts in an attempt to find the best technique available. It has become a seasonal tradition for us, and many cold nights have been spent by the fire with family and friends roasting chestnuts. When we first started we tried scoring the shells and boiling them before roasting. We compared results with oven roasted chestnuts versus those done over an open fire. We tried different types of containers to help the chestnuts get hot fast and steam the inner lining loose prior to the nut drying out. With all the experimentation it seems that keeping it simple is the best, after all it’s about roasting the chestnuts with friends and family. It’s not really about the nut.
What we have landed on is roasting them really hot and fast, almost burning the outer shell off. First, get a really good bed of coals built up in the firepit and push the wood in the fire to one side, so you can keep everyone warm while roasting. We use an old school wire mesh popcorn popper as the roasting utensil, but really anything will work. Cast iron pie molds work also but they get really hot and the nuts can sometimes explode. Put an amount of chestnuts that will be eaten immediately in the popcorn popper and put it directly on the coals. Shake the nuts around every 30 seconds or so until they are charred and the outer skin will come off easily when you rub it in between your hands. This is generally about five minutes or so. To remove the skin just rub it in between your two hands and hopefully the inner lining is burnt to the outer shell. If some of the inner lining sticks pick it off. If it doesn’t come off or the nut doesn’t taste good then oh well, it’s not really about the nut anyways.
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