Wherever you may be this fall, one of the delights is to snack your teeth into a sweet roasted chestnut. If you are walking around the city center either in Istanbul, Barcelona or New York you may feel the roasted chestnuts smell in the air that reminds you of the season of colored leaves, pumpkins & Halloween.
Roasted Chestnuts
Print RecipeInstructions
You might be surprised to learn how easy is to roast your own chestnuts. First of all make sure that you get the edible chestnuts (also known as Sweet Chestnut - "Castanea sativa" (Latin)) and not the Horse Chestnut ("Aesculus hippocastanum" (Latin)).
Heat your oven at 200C (fan)
Now you need to crust the chestnuts on their "belly". Place them one by one on a wood board and with a sharp knife cut their skin from one side to the other making sure you are not cutting through the nut inside.
Place the crusted chestnuts in a tray and leave them in the oven for 30 minutes.
Once done, wrap them in a clean towel for 15 minutes. In this way you will peel much easier the skin.
Notes
As an alternative to the oven roasting you can boil the chestnuts for a smoother texture (say if you want to make a pure). Just crust the chestnuts and boil them for 30 minutes. Note also that the chestnuts are super caloric, counting 213 calories for each 100 grams.
