Sweet Chestnuts

Who would have thought that there would be a period in history called Covid-19 Level 4 Pandemic Lock Down, in New Zealand, that would last for 4 weeks+ in the year 2020? But here we all are, most of us staying at home and periodically having a wander around in our own neighbourhoods. I am so glad that it's autumn and that I live in an area in which I have been able to gather and discover all kinds of nuts and seeds. I was so disappointed to think that I was missing the chance to gather sweet chestnuts this season, as there are very few trees in the inner city that I know of. And then I remembered the Castanea Sativa trees in Windsor Park- in fair walking and biking distance from home.

These trees don't produce the most remarkable nuts, but if you look carefully you can find enough decent sweet chestnuts to make it worth your while gathering them.

Sweet chestnuts are easy to identify once you know that you're looking for- little baby hedgehogs!

The horse chestnut trees produce armoured, much larger nuts, known as conkers. They are not even actually in the same family as sweet chestnuts. There are three varieties that you're likely to find in a park near you, but they are sadly inedible. They can, however, be used much like soap nuts for washing clothes. 

If you cut the nuts open, peel off the outer brown shell & then cut in to small pieces, cover with cold water in a jar then within a few hours you'll have a well saponified handy washing liquid.

Now back to our sweet chestnuts- no matter which way you cook them: roasting in the oven, over the fire or boiling, you'll need to cut a cross in the top of each one.

I have worked with them all ways and have decided that it's just easiest to boil them.

Cover the nuts with cold water, bring them to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the cut skins begin to curl back.

Leaving all the chestnuts in the pot of hot water you then take them out a few at a time to remove the hard outer shell and the thin inner brown covering that surrounds each nut. They are only workable if they're still hot, so pop them back in to the water in the pot if they start to get a bit hard to work with.

Quite a performance, but worth it. Chestnuts have a very short shelf life- only 2 or 3 days but can be frozen for up to 3 months. They can now be added in to autumn/winter dishes or tossed in butter, salt & pepper in a cast iron fry pan- delicious!

This week I made a feijoa crumble. 

In the topping I added 1/2 cup of chestnut meal, 1/2 cup of ground acorn meal, a cup of white spelt flour, 1/3 cup of brown sugar & enough butter rubbed in to make it all moist but crumbly.

If you'd like to have a go at using acorns you can find my post about them here.

Katie X