All About Sweet Chestnuts

Seasonal Treat of the Forager in the Fall and Gourmand at Christmas

Sep 8, 2008 Susan Morris

Eating sweet chestnuts awakens senses to autumnal cooking. Held in high esteem in many countries as a gourmet food, sweet chestnuts are a versatile ingredient.

Throwing a handful of sweet chestnuts into a fire and waiting for the sound of a bang to announce they are ready for eating has to be done, if possible, on a weekend outdoors. Closer to home, street vendors with a brazier may be seen selling sweet chestnuts. It could be Christmas in July in Queensland Australia, an Oktoberfest stall in Munich Germany or an Autumn food market in Strasbourg France.

Sweet Chestnuts as a Versatile Ingredient

Cooks in southern Europe hold sweet chestnuts in high esteem. In Seasonal Food: A Guide to What’s in Season When and Why (Eden Project Books, 2004), Paul Waddington writes that sweet chestnuts “are eaten more widely and in more diverse ways; the starchy nut can be turned into bread, cakes, porridge and polenta. In Corsica, where the trees are common, they were a staple food and the major source of flour until the twentieth century. Still, chestnut processing is hard work”.

Sweet Chestnuts Recipe Ideas

Pairing sweet chestnuts with Brussels sprouts is considered a classic combination for a side dish for a celebration meal. A well-known frozen food producer offers a readymade option for Christmas.

Seasonal cooks who are keen to prepare sweet chestnuts and fresh Brussels sprouts could do so equally well. Mixing the sweet chestnuts, as whole nuts or in halves, with Brussels sprouts brings together two different textures with a similar melt-in-the-mouth taste.

Alternatively, the cooked sweet chestnuts could be mashed or processed into a fresh sweet chestnut purée. Chestnut purée is an essential ingredient in ‘Brussels sprouts rolled in chestnut cream’ published in keeping it simple by Gary Rhodes (Michael Joseph Penguin, 2005).

Celebrations: Recipes for Festive Occasions (The National Trust 1995) offers a main meal idea and a starter using sweet chestnuts. In Celebrations Simone Seekers features ‘Chicken with Cider and Chestnuts’, using 8 oz (225g) of chestnuts in her Sir Isaac Newton’s Apple Menu for four. With an abundant supply of sweet chestnuts, a soup like Chestnut Soup with Bacon Croûtons for eight, using 1lb (450g) of sweet chestnuts, from Celebrations, is a possibility. An alternative soup sweet chestnut soup recipe has pared down ingredients.

Identifying Sweet Chestnuts

Chestnuts vendors will rarely label their nuts as sweet chestnuts but they will be selling sweet chestnuts. Horse chestnuts have a less appealing taste than sweet chestnuts.

Seasonal cooks who are foraging in the wild should remind themselves before setting out of the key differences between the trees bearing sweet chestnuts and trees bearing horse chestnuts. The leaves of the tree can help identification of a sweet chestnut tree from a distance. A sweet chestnut tree has leaves with an oval shape like a spearhead.

In contrast to the leaves of a sweet chestnut tree, the leaves of a horse chestnut tree can be described as pear-shaped. Forest finds of horse chestnuts can be used for playing in a conkers league.

The copyright of the article All About Sweet Chestnuts in Seasonal Cooking is owned by Susan Morris. Permission to republish All About Sweet Chestnuts in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Seasonal Cooking with Sweet Chestnuts

Foraging for Chestnuts