Surely many read in books or personally observed in Paris numerous street vendors of roasted chestnuts. So almost everyone knows at least one way to make chestnut - it needs to be fried. But far from all know exactly which chestnuts are suitable for this.
So, many note that, despite the well-known abundance of chestnuts in Odessa and Kiev, there is no street trade in their fruits. And the point here is not at all the lack of enterprise among local residents. Just a tree, which tourists gather to admire the flowering, is called horse chestnut. Cooking its fruits for food is impossible for the reason that they are not edible. And they eat nuts of a noble chestnut, which grows only in the southern regions. These trees, if you delve into the botanical jungle, even belong to different species. The edible species itself is not even a chestnut as such, referring to the beech family.
But this is not important now, we want to learn the recipe for making chestnuts, and not to conduct a botany lesson. In the people, both the tree is called chestnut solely because of the external similarity of the fruits, which are shiny brown nuts ripening inside the spiny shell.
The similarity is very arbitrary, and it is difficult to confuse edible chestnuts with horse chestnuts . Judge for yourself - on the left you see the fruits of horse chestnut, and on the lower right - those that can be eaten. As can be seen from the photo, the edible variety is smaller and the fact that one side of the fruit is flat.
Chestnuts Recipe
Frankly, you can’t cook them at all. These nuts are quite tasty and raw, but tradition requires these chestnuts to be fried, so that they will not deviate from the canons. Purchased fruits with a dense and shiny skin are washed, a cross-shaped incision is made on the flat part of the nuts. This is necessary in order to prevent the fruit from exploding during the frying process, but we want to get a normal dish, not chestnut popcorn. After cutting, put them in a pan, cover it with a lid and send to the stove where they will have to spend about half an hour, just remember to shake them periodically. The readiness of chestnuts is determined simply - you need to press on the nut with your finger - if it is soft, then you can turn off the fire and serve the finished dish to the table. They need to be consumed hot with salt.
But the recipe for making chestnuts may be different. They can still be cooked, stewed, baked in the oven and dried. Mashed potatoes and seasonings for meat dishes are prepared from them. They stuff the bird, make chestnut desserts and puddings. There is even a recipe for making chestnuts with rice and soup with these fruits.
For fans of culinary exoticism, here is a recipe for chestnut soup. We make frying from onions, carrots and celery. We clean the chestnuts, fill it with meat broth and send it to the stove. Separately, fry a little flour and combine it with vegetables. After the chestnuts soften, pour the vegetables into the pan, salt, pepper to taste and cook for about 10 minutes, then filter the broth. Beat the boiled vegetable mass in a blender until gruel. We reconnect this mashed potatoes with the broth, mix and serve to the table with sour cream. For more "surroundings" you can add sherry. Try it - you won’t regret it.