Each of us loves to eat tasty and satisfying food. Often the housewives face the question: what to cook in order to please loved ones and not spend a lot of effort and time on it? If you really want to surprise your family, try Roasted Chestnuts!
Many, for sure, do not even know that chestnuts are edible, but this is true. And if you cook them correctly, the dish will turn out to be unusual, tasty and original. Chestnuts have been a favorite delicacy since ancient times. The most ancient Romans and Greeks loved to eat them for dessert and a bite to eat with wines. Chestnuts are widely used in European cuisine. They are included in the menu of many restaurants in France, Italy and other places that know a lot about food. For example, in Paris, chestnuts are cooked right on the street in special large pans and immediately treated to passers-by. Moreover, in France they are baked on fires, in pans with special holes, they are cooked into soups, served with seafood, and even bread and sweets are made from chestnut flour.
The chestnuts taste like a cross between a nut and a potato. If eaten raw, they will be crispy; if boiled, they will become soft. Chestnut is used as a base for a dish. They can be bought in regular stores by weight, frozen and in cans in the form of ready-made puree. But it is even easier to find chestnuts right on the street, because they actively grow on trees in the fall. But be careful! If you decide to pick chestnuts yourself, you need to know which fruits you can take, and which ones are better to refuse. They all look the same and are covered with a brown shell. But not everything can be eaten! Edible chestnuts are slightly elongated and bulbous. The trees on which they grow have carved, jagged leaves that are attached to the branches with the help of a cutting. If the leaves resemble maple, it is better not to pluck the chestnuts from them, because can be easily poisoned. When you crack such a fruit, you will see that their nuts are round in shape and slightly embossed.
Chestnuts are extremely healthy, as with all nuts, they contain natural plant proteins and carbohydrates that are easily absorbed by the body. They contain such important substances as ascorbic and folic acids, potassium, copper, iron and zinc.
First, they must be cut. This can be done with scissors or a regular knife. Cut from the side to slightly touch the nut itself. This is done so that steam is freely released from the chestnuts when frying.
If the chestnuts are not young and the flesh is wrinkled, you can add a little water to them or cover with a damp towel. This will allow them to steam well.
So now that we've learned how to pick and process chestnuts, it's time to learn how to cook them!
Chestnuts need to be peeled and bitter veins removed. Then they should be rubbed with a brush and washed with plain water. After that, as we have already said, you need to make cuts in the chestnuts or just pierce them deeply with a fork.
Use any large, thick-sided skillet, a special grill dish is best. Then warm it up well and lay out the chestnuts. You don't need to add any oil! Remember to cover the chestnuts with a lid and roast them over moderate heat. If they start to crackle and burst, just shake the pan. Take your time to cool the dish right away. They are good hot!
Thoroughly approach the choice of dishes. There are special pans for roasting chestnuts. Their distinctive feature is small holes at the bottom.
Important rules for frying:
Another fun way to cook chestnuts is to bake them in the oven, and you also need to wash and cut them to get started.
Next, put the fruits on a baking sheet and place in the oven, preheated to 220 degrees. Wait for the moment when your chestnuts begin to crack and open. This means that the dish is ready and ready to be tasted. You can add salt or sugar to give it a savory taste.
And here is another interesting recipe for cooking chestnuts in the oven.
Roasted chestnuts recipe depends entirely on the taste of the final product you want to get.
Chestnuts taste good with both salt and sugar. They absorb the flavor of the ingredients used in the preparation and are able to diversify any dish or table.
Due to their neutral taste and low aroma, chestnuts are often used in appetizers, main courses, salads, soups, baked goods and desserts.
The main problem for people who want to try chestnuts for food is not knowing that chestnuts are not all good for eating. Forest chestnuts and growing in cities are not suitable for human food, with the exception of the Caucasus.
Cooking chestnuts can be bought in stores (supermarkets) or markets. Chestnuts need to be figured out like mushrooms, although they are not poisonous. The external distinguishing feature of an edible chestnut is a brown shell, the chestnut kernel is shiny.
Edible chestnuts are thermophilic. They can be found on their own, but they grow in the Caucasus region. Fresh chestnuts appear on sale in the fall.
In areas where chestnuts are traditionally consumed, they are treated as a staple food. This is due to their "satiety" and nutritional characteristics, which are comparable to rice and potatoes.
Roasted chestnuts taste difficult to describe unambiguously. It largely depends on the ingredients used in the preparation.
Raw chestnuts taste similar to unripe nuts, but less oily. Roasted chestnuts taste like potatoes.
How to cook over an open fire
This recipe for roasted chestnuts is often used during outdoor activities. They are fried in a metal bowl until cooked to taste, from 10 to 20 minutes. Serve hot, peeling from the shell.
The main rule when roasting chestnuts, which must always be remembered and followed, is the processing of the chestnut shell before frying. When heated, their shell bursts and destroys the core. Therefore, the shell is always cut in diameter, crosswise, or simply pierced in several places.
Oven roasted chestnuts recipe
If necessary, the chestnuts are washed and dried. Be sure to process the shell with a sharp knife, cutting deep crosses on one side of the chestnut. Chestnuts are laid out on a prepared baking sheet with the cut sides up.
The oven oven must be preheated to 190 degrees. A baking sheet with chestnuts is placed in a preheated oven. They can be considered ready after they release the juice. This will take approximately 20 minutes. After that, you can process the fried chestnuts with any ingredients you like and hold it for another 5 minutes in the oven to get a delicious meal.
Pan fried chestnuts recipe
Mandatory processing of the casing, which can be done with a fork, piercing the casing a third of the thickness of the chestnut, or making deep cuts with a knife, with a cross. This will prevent them from exploding when exposed to strong heat. There is a lot of juice in the chestnut, which turns into steam when heated and tends to break the chestnut. It is for the exit of steam that the processing of the shell is done.
You need to prepare a frying pan, a few napkins and half a glass of water. The chestnuts are loaded into a frying pan and covered with a layer of napkins moistened with water. Frying takes place over low heat for about 22 minutes. The pan is covered with a lid. The chestnuts are stirred periodically. Dried wipes re-moisturize. This is to prevent the chestnuts from drying out and becoming too hard. If the processing of the shell was not done well, some chestnuts may explode, this is not a big deal.
At the end of cooking, you can treat the chestnuts with salt or sugar, or other ingredients to taste.
You can squeeze the chestnuts to check if they are ready. If the shell breaks down and comes off with light effort, then the chestnuts are ready.
And in this article you will find a description of the preparation of an unusual dish for the middle strip - fried chestnut.
Chestnuts are a tree species belonging to the beech family. The fruits of chestnuts are considered edible. They are grown in Africa, Europe, Crimea, Transcaucasia, in other words, where the climate is warm and there are no low temperatures in winter. There are also decorative varieties of this tree, but it is better not to eat their fruits.
Sweet chestnuts are considered the most suitable for cooking. This species has been cultivated in the world for a very long time. For cooking chestnuts, there is even a special dish in which they are fried. Skewers can also be used.
It is interesting! On Christmas Eve, the smell of roasted chestnuts fills the European streets. There it is considered a traditional dish for the holiday.
Roasted chestnuts have a rather specific taste. In some ways, these nuts vaguely resemble the taste of uncooked potatoes, but with hints of raw walnut. You can definitely say that this dish is worth a try, but there is no guarantee that you will like it. Basically, the situation is the same with celery, broccoli, cauliflower, onions - not for everybody.
Roasted chestnuts are eaten in the following variations:
Chestnuts are also used to cook meat, poultry, and are used as an appetizer and as an independent dish.
Chestnuts are a healthy and nutritious product. The calorie content of raw chestnuts is about 170 kcal per 100 g, while their calorie content in fried form increases. Roasted chestnuts have a caloric value of around 200 kcal.
Chestnuts in any form contain:
Moreover, of all nuts, chestnuts are considered the least fat.
Chestnut also has the following properties:
Very often in folk medicine, chestnut infusions are used to treat joints and varicose veins. Also, chestnut will be very useful for people with rosacea, since the regular use of this type of nuts will significantly strengthen the walls of blood vessels and capillaries.
The harm to chestnut is minimal. However, chestnuts should be excluded from the diet for people who are allergic to this product, as well as those who suffer from seizures, Parkinson's syndrome, gastritis, stomach and duodenal ulcers, liver and kidney diseases.
The easiest way to peel chestnuts is after they have been cut into halves with a knife and then cooked. Then the peel comes off quite easily.
The video below shows an accelerated process of peeling chestnuts at home.
Roasted chestnuts are the most common chestnut dish. Roasted nuts are served with sauces, added to salads, soups, and used as a main course. Chestnuts are roasted in a special way. You cannot fry these nuts without performing a few preliminary manipulations.
Usually, the chestnuts are boiled for a few minutes before roasting. So it becomes softer.
This recipe describes the technology of cooking the "fried chestnuts" dish.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
When the shell begins to detach freely, the nuts are ready.
Find out how professionals roast chestnuts in the video below.
The oven, like the frying pan, is perfect for roasting or roasting chestnuts. Chestnuts are usually cooked over an open fire, but oven baking can be a good alternative.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
In the microwave, cooking many dishes can be much easier and faster. However, the microwave has its own specifics. To make the food tasty, you need to choose the right dishes, and the food must be properly processed before cooking.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
Advice! Before you put the nuts in the microwave, it is imperative to make cuts along the wide side of the chestnut, or with a cross. Otherwise, the nuts may burst.
The principle of cooking chestnuts in a multicooker is very similar to cooking chestnuts in the microwave or oven.
Advice! It is important to understand that chestnuts can make a clicking sound when roasting, but they should not explode or burst.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
Chestnuts are cooked in several ways. Water is usually used for cooking, but few people know that chestnuts can be boiled in regular or baked milk.
Method number 1.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
Method number 2.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
The advantage of this method is that the nuts are much juicier than boiled in water and have a creamy taste.
Did you know that you can even make jam from chestnuts? To taste, such a delicacy will resemble real apple jam with a nutty flavor. It should definitely be prepared for those who like unusual flavor combinations.
Chestnuts are mainly used for making cream soup. It is in this form that the taste of the nut is fully revealed, mixed with the rest of the ingredients and creates a unique quintessence of aromas.
The recipe for this dish usually includes vegetables, cheese, milk, curds, herbs, bread, wine.
This salad is especially relevant in late summer and early autumn, since all the products used in it are considered the most delicious and fresh during this period. The main ingredients are lettuce, chestnuts and carrots.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
The salad is very simple to prepare. You can also sprinkle sesame seeds, almond petals, or mill pepper on top.
Chestnuts can be used not only canned, but also fried.
And here is another option for preparing an interesting dish - turkey with chestnuts. The taste turns out to be very unusual, you definitely have not tried this.
Like any other nut, chestnuts can be eaten raw. But their taste is most fully revealed only during heat treatment.
For the winter, chestnuts can be harvested in the following ways:
To dry the chestnuts, you need to make several cuts on the flat side and dry them in a fruit and mushroom dryer or oven. But with long-term storage, the nuts prepared in this way lose their flavor. Therefore, we recommend another method - freezing.
To freeze, do as follows:
Roasted chestnuts are a symbol of the Christmas table in some European countries. The dish is prepared in a brazier, in a frying pan, or in an oven. In this article, you will find a recipe for making roasted chestnuts at home.
On the street, chestnuts are fried in special braziers and sold as a certain kind of delicacy. If you have raw southern chestnuts, then at home you can cook this unusual dish for us.
It is important not to overexpose the chestnuts in the pan, because then they can become tough and tasteless. As soon as the brown shell begins to easily yield and peel off, the chestnuts are ready.
Fry the chestnuts in portions at a time, you should not do this for the future, since the fried chestnuts become dry during storage.
Roasted chestnuts are peeled and consumed as a separate dish. But you can make an unusual dessert from fried chestnuts: pour them with hot chocolate sauce. Serve in bowls.
Roasted chestnuts can be the basis of a puree soup, you can bake meat and pumpkin with them.
The kind of chestnut that grows in our territory, the horse chestnut, is unsuitable for food. Roasted southern noble chestnuts growing in Europe, America and the Caucasus. These chestnuts also differ in appearance. The horse chestnut has one seed, and the southern fruit contains two or three chestnuts. They are considered nuts and can be eaten raw or roasted.
The use of fried chestnuts has a positive effect on the state of blood vessels, muscles and bones, the nervous system, the work of the digestive tract, normalizes blood cholesterol levels and increases immunity.
However, despite their rich composition, chestnuts are not as high in calories as other nuts and are quite suitable for dietary nutrition.
There are legends about the taste of chestnuts. To some, their taste resembles baked potatoes combined with a nut, others claim that the most delicious are those that were harvested in the fall, because they have so much sweetness! These fruits have found their application in cooking more than a century ago, and you can learn how to cook chestnuts from this article.
Many of us cannot even imagine what a pleasure it is to eat chestnuts. But in other countries they are served as an independent dish or used in the preparation of soups, side dishes and even desserts. If you have ventured into a culinary experiment with such an exotic nut, then we will show you how to cook it correctly. The main thing is to eat chestnuts hot, because when they cool down, they lose their unique taste.
The easiest way to prepare such fruits is to simply fry in a pan. But before answering the question of how to roast chestnuts, it should be warned that before any method of processing them, the nuts must be soaked and only those that have fallen to the bottom of the container should be used.
Each fruit must be cut or punctured so that it does not explode during cooking.
This is an even easier way to cook chestnuts. It is even easier than frying them in a pan.
You can also fry chestnuts in the microwave, this is also a simple and safe way to cook them. True, this way they turn out not so much fried as steamed.
The airfryer can also be used to cook chestnuts. To do this, take a baking sheet from the device, spread the cut nuts on it and bake them for 20 to 30 minutes at a temperature of 180 ° C. The lower and upper grill can be covered with foil - this will make the fruits softer.
Once you master the basic cooking recipes, you can safely take on other, more interesting recipes. For example, you can cook soup from chestnuts, bake them with meat, or please your loved ones with an original dessert.
Such a phrase as "chestnuts with honey" may sound strange to some, but in fact, such ingredients make a delicious autumn dessert. The finished dish combines several flavors at once - sour, bitter and sweet. In many countries, this delicacy is served with green tea for breakfast or afternoon tea.
Chestnuts can be mashed or creamy.
Puree is ideal for soups, baked goods and other desserts. The cream is used to make mousses, ice cream and cakes.
The cream can also be mixed with yogurt, cottage cheese, muesli, or simply eaten with toast.
If you plan to use chestnut puree as a side dish for meat or poultry, use salt instead of sweetener, and add an onion or celery stalk to the recipe.
If you add cream instead of water, then it will already turn out to be a creamy cream. For its preparation, we also prepare mashed potatoes, mix it with warmed up cream, sugar and vanilla. Boil the cream until thickened for 15 minutes, then put pieces of butter in it, mix and remove from heat. If the cream is too thick, then dilute it with cream.
At the height of winter, the streets of Turkish cities fill with the aromas of roasted chestnuts. Turkish residents offer their guests to try a variety of dishes made from such an exotic nut. One of the special treats is Kestane Sekeri, a candied edible chestnut, the recipe for which you will learn right now.
By tradition, the chestnuts are fried on coals, the peel bursts from the heat and then easily peels off.
At home, you can use more affordable cleaning methods.
At the end of the article, I would like to say that the chestnut that we often find on our streets is not used for cooking. This is a special species of the Beech family - the sowing chestnut Castanea sativa. The edible chestnut is native to Asia Minor, as well as Southern and Eastern Europe. Today, this type of deciduous tree grows on the southern shores of the Crimea, in the Caucasus, Dagestan and Moldova.