How to prepare chestnuts

One of my students came to class with two huge bag full’s of chestnuts. Just because of the nutritional properties I decided to go ahead and take the two bags but man are they a hassle. Chestnuts go bad really quickly, molding on the inside, especially if left on the counter in a warm room. So I had to deal with these chestnuts as soon as possible.

My next-door neighbor gave me the good advice of peeling, prepping and freezing any of the chestnuts I wasn’t going to eat immediately. Turns out I actually ate all of them over the course of a week in my morning breakfast. And I also put some in "chestnut rice," which is basically just rice mixed with chestnuts when cooked.

The hard part was figuring out how to prepare them. This is what I did but I recommend also trying out boiling them because it might be easier on your hands. 

First I use the pointy back end of a knife to slowly and carefully make a cross cut on the top of the chestnut. This allows any of the moisture buildup to escape instead of making your chestnuts explode, but it also gives you a starting point from where to peel the shell from.

I used the fish grill part of my stove to grill about five chestnuts at a time but you can also microwave them or put them in the oven. Grilling in small batches allowed me to work quickly and get the peels off before they started to cool down. 

Allow them to cook for about five minutes or until the X part of the shell starts to peel back and up.

You’re gonna want to take the chestnuts out of the grill or oven and immediately peel away the hard outer shell. Be careful because the inside is extremely hot. The steam coming from the nut itself is the hottest and most dangerous part. If you have very tough fingers like I do, you can just peel it as is but I would recommend gloves. 

Using a knife to assist you, begin peeling back the fuzzy inner husk away from the yellow chestnut. This is the most annoying part because if you let them cool down too much, the fuzzy husk sticks to the chestnut. If the husk doesn’t come off easily, you’ll need to use the knife to cut it away.

Alternatively, if you’re going to eat some right away, you can pop them back into the grill and cook them for a few more minutes turning them over so that the husky part becomes nice and crisp and then eat it as is. If you’re going to be using the chestnuts in chestnut rice, then you’ll need to have all of the fuzzy bit completely scraped off. I actually kind of liked the crunchy effect that the fuzzy husk part gave so I left mine on most of the time if it didn’t come off easily. 

I put mine back in the refrigerator after I cooked and prepped them and I feel that they actually became sweeter over time. You can’t leave them too long in the refrigerator, but a day or two cooling off really brings out the sweetness. 

I’ve helped peel boiled chestnuts before, a long time ago, and I vaguely remember them being pretty difficult to peel as well; the same problem is that the hotter they are, the easier they are to peel. But boiling them is fine especially if you don’t have a grill or an oven