This year our chestnut trees were loaded. We're not sure how, but we managed to beat the parrots to the nuts and bravely picked several kilos. I say bravely because we did have to glove up with our thickest leather gloves before venturing forth to pick the chestnuts. If you've ever seen a chestnut on a tree - or on the ground in our case - you'll know they are covered in serious spikes. Those spikes will penetrate the thickest gloves we have. It's fair to say, even gloved up, we picked those suckers up very, very carefully.
In Australia, the chestnuts fall to the ground once they're ripe. I'm kinda thankful we don't need to pick them from the tree. But picking them from the ground has its own challenges. R learnt very quickly that, if you wear thongs when you go chestnut picking, you'd better be really good at hopping when you lose one of them. Either way, these nuts need careful handling to reap the reward of the smooth, brown kernel that is hidden inside.
This pic will give you an idea of how spiky the husk is. Inside one husk there is generally at least two and sometimes four nuts. Just as well. If each nut was wrapped in its own husk, I'm pretty sure we'd let the parrots have them.
I suspect most of you have heard the ever-popular tune, The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire). It always conjures up images of snow, mulled wine and roaring fires for me. Chestnut season in our part of the world is at the end of Summer, in March. Definitely not the season for roaring fires. Lucky for us we have a good friend who loves chestnuts. She told us that she boils and peels them for eating. So that's what we did. Before boiling, a small cross needs to be cut in each nut. Apart from the spiky husk, chestnuts have a tough outer brown skin and a softer inner skin. That's a lot of skins that need to be removed and, unless you're roasting or boiling the chestnuts (or a parrot) you're not getting those nuts clean.
The nuts need to be peeled while they're hot. The skins harden up once they cool down. Seriously, we'd never tried chestnuts before we embarked on picking these. We had no idea how much danger of injury was involved. Between us we managed to peel about half a kilo and of course, we munched on several along the way. They're surprisingly sweet. I guess we expected them to be savoury cos they're, well, nuts. I bet they'd be amazing over an open fire. Next year, if we get brave enough to pick again, we'll stick some in the freezer so we can experience them roasted.
These pictures show the processing of boiled nuts.
I did some research to see what I could do with the chestnuts that didn't involve adding chocolate. Not that I'm against chocolate mind. I quite like it. But I was hoping for something a little main meal. And I found a recipe for pumpkin, sage and chestnut risotto. Which is kind of handy. Because we just picked a pumpkin from our veg patch. Guess that's tomorrow's tea sorted.
Oh, and if any of you love chestnuts, you're more than welcome to share ours. Just as long as you come and pick them yourselves.
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