Chestnut recipes & how to preserve them, what I learned so far and a few words about cooking in general

"What a treasure..." - my mother whispered while she was going through the chestnuts I brought home. At first, we kept them in the basket. After a week of roasting and eating them at a slow pace (eating roasted chestnuts everyday isn't slow pace to most, but to us it is, considering the bounty we have), we noticed a lot of them are turning rotten and/or wormy. Below the basket, water condensated on the floor (making a safe place for mold) and worms started crawling and creeping out of the basket in all directions. We decided that we will keep the chestnuts spread out on some old newspapers on the floor, so water evaporates without condensating back down. The process of molding and rotting slowed down, and we regularly went through them looking for worms or chestnuts with holes (worm inside!). All these measures prolong their shelf life, but next was a question what to do with the oldest ones that are about to rot out either way. Better be something delicious, I said, and so it was.

Above, an on-the-go simple version, chestnut puree topped with thick sour cherry jam.

I love playing with food. In other words, I hate boring food. I will eat it and possibly, my stomach will be satisfied with it, but my tastebuds require a balance of harmony and chaos in order for their wishes to be fulfilled. Every now and then, I try to offer them a completely new blend of tastes and textures. One way to achieve this harmony/chaos balance is with the use of complementary contrasts - in color (that plate below would look eye-catching with a fistful of blueberries and some decorating borage flowers), taste (sweet/sour), and texture (the smooth banana contrasts the crispy walnut).

Ice cold chestnut puree with lemon juice poured with piping hot sour cherry and fig jam, sprinkled with crumbled walnuts and banana slices

As I start to write this recipe, I recall an experience I had as a kid roasting chestnuts in the oven. I spread them on the tray and put it in the oven, turned the heat up and went to my room. Soon I was woken up from my childlish ignorance with the sound of gunfire coming from my kitchen. Panic almost got me, but I managed to just turn the heat off and leave it as is... Warfare was finally silenced after a few more chestnuts went booom. Point is, if you're cooking or roasting chestnuts for the first time, always make a cut on them before putting them anywhere near the heat to prevent your oven or even the whole kitchen from becoming untidy with chestnut pieces all around.

Above, the goodness made of efforts and love of my grandmother (the jam), my mother and I

We've found that chestnuts open best (if roasted) when cut full-length side-to-side. Roasting aside, there's an effective method for cooking and cleaning chestnuts for the puree. To incorporate this method you can cut them in any way you like, just make sure the gases can escape the shell. When they are raw, chestnuts are tarp to taste... As they cook, these substances obviously degrade (the 15 minute period), after which starch begins to gelatinize and become sweeter. The best is to try them every few minutes after cooking them for 15 minutes... When they become irresistibly tasty, turn the heat off.

Grab a handful (leave the rest in the pot - they are easiest to clean if hot or atleast warm) and cut them in half butt-to-pointy-end, so you don't waste too much time on the rotten ones. Take the other end of a spoon and slice it in between the skin and the inside... Spoon it out. Take your time to figure the best motion, you'll soon be manufacturing chestnut puree - much faster if three people are doing the job, one cutting them in half and the other two spooning the inside out. Be extra careful for the inside skin, if you leave it in the puree, the whole thing will seem as if it's full of sand between your teeth.

Make a nut milk, blend nuts with water, drain and use the milk to blend your cleaned chestnuts. Our almonds that my grandpa sent us from the south of the country were still in their hard shells and I was feeling hungry... Pure water worked just fine too (I can see how it would be even better with almond milk). Add your favorite sweetener - in my opinion the best for this recipe is molasses (for best aroma), or better yet pulverized dates (the healthiest one), I had none of that so I used plain old white sugar, the tiniest amount. If you use too much, you might ruin the taste or the aroma (not with white sugar tho'), so add a little and try, add a little and try. Infact, that might be the best advice I can give you about cuisine.

Before spicing a meal, try it. Before serving a meal, try it. Tasteless food is boring and over-spiced is straight-up inedible.

...

Immediately freeze the puree because it can get a funky smell pretty quickly when exposed to air. The rest are my grandma's jam cooking skills and my humble walnut cracking skills. If there wasn't for the banana (which I couldn't resist to eat in this combination), this recipe would be completely free (from the use of any form of currency). Not only is it true that food is free, but shockingly delicious & healthy food is free. I was incredibly satisfied with the mix of textures, tastes and the smell... I could have thickened the jam a little, but still, it was perfect!

You can't do a brand new version if you haven't done the classic...

Chestnut puree with hot black chocolate and cinnamon

Play with yourself, play in the kitchen and play with the food - that's my message to you. Doing everything by the recipe is boring and does not bring anything new to the world. It does have it's benefits, as to no mistakes, less borderly edible meals, but still, it cannot ever positively surprise you as experiments in the kitchen can!

Follow me up if you like the content! Check out older posts, this one on chestnut foraging and this one on mushrooms. If you write about similar topics... Permaculture, gardening, foraging, plants, mushrooms, ethical veganism, vegan cuisine and so on... Be sure to leave a comment so I can follow you!