A nut to get your teeth into. And a harvest to get your hands into, if the year is good and the nuts thick enough on the ground to warrant a small sack rather than a basket. Although the tree was in all probability introduced to this country by the Romans, nothing seems more English than gathering and roasting chestnuts on fine autumn afternoons.
The best chestnut trees are the straight, old ones whose leaves turn brown early. Do not confuse them with horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum), whose inedible conkers look rather similar to sweet chestnuts inside their spiny husks. In fact the trees are not related, Castanea sativa being more closely related to the oak. They will be covered with the prickly fruit as early as September, and small specimens of the nuts to come will be blown down early in the next month. Ignore them, unless you can find some bright green ones which have just fallen. They are undeveloped and will shrivel within a day or two.
The ripe nuts begin to fall late in October, and can be helped on their way with a few judiciously thrown sticks. Opening the prickly husks can be a painful business, and for the early part of the crop it is as well to take a pair of gloves and some strong boots, the latter for splitting the husks underfoot, the former for extricating the fruits. The polished brown surface of the ripe nuts uncovered by the split husk is positively alluring. You will want to stamp on every husk you see, and rummage down through the leaves and spines to see if the reward is glinting there.
Don’t shy away from eating the nuts raw. If the stringy pith is peeled away as well as the shell, most of their bitterness will go. But roasting transforms them. They take on the sweetness and bulk of some tropical fruit. As is the case with so much else in this book, the excitement lies as much in the rituals of preparation as in the food itself. Chestnut roasting is an institution, rich with associations of smell, and of welcomingly hot coals in cold streets. To do it efficiently at home, slit the skins, and put the nuts in the hot ash of an open fire or close to the red coals – save one, which is put in uncut. When this explodes, the others are ready. The explosion is fairly ferocious, scattering hot shrapnel over the room, so sit well back from the fire and make sure all the other nuts have been slit.
© Bob Gibbons/FLPA
© ImageBroker/Imagebroker/FLPA, © Cisca Castelijns/FN/Minden/FLPA, © Cisca Castelijns/FN/Minden/FLPA, © David Hosking/FLPA
Chestnuts are highly versatile. They can be pickled, candied, or made into an amber with breadcrumbs and egg yolk. Boiled with Brussels sprouts they were Goethe’s favourite dish. Chopped, stewed and baked with red cabbage, they make a rich vegetable pudding.
Chestnut purée
Chestnut purée is a convenient form in which to use the nuts. Shell and peel the chestnuts. This is easily done if you boil them for 5 minutes first. Boil the shelled nuts again in a thin stock for about 40 minutes. Strain off the liquid and then rub the nuts through a sieve, or mash them in a liquidiser. The resulting purée can be seasoned and used as a substitute for potatoes, or it can form the basis of stuffings, soups and sweets, such as chestnut fool.
Chestnut and porcini soup
For 4 people
250 g (½ lb) chestnuts (tinned will do)
30 g (1 oz) dried porcini (better than fresh for this soup)
1 large onion
4 rashers of bacon
100 g (3½ oz) butter
lemon juice
fino sherry
• Peel the chestnuts, if you are using fresh ones, and boil for an hour in a large saucepan with just enough water to cover (40 minutes will do if you’re using vacuum-packed nuts).
• Reconstitute the dried porcini in sufficient boiling water to cover them, and leave to soak for 30 minutes. Hang on to the water.
• Meanwhile peel and finely slice the onion, cut the bacon rashers into broad slices, and fry both in the butter for about 10 minutes, until the onion is golden. Then slip this mixture, plus the porcini and their soaking water into the pan containing the chestnuts and their water. Simmer for a further 15 minutes.
• Cool the soup a little, and liquidise in batches until it’s thoroughly smooth, adding water if necessary until it is at your preferred consistency.
• Reheat in the pan with a squeeze of lemon juice, and just before serving add a small glass of fino sherry.
Chestnut flan
Chestnut flour is difficult to make at home, but is obtainable in most health food stores. This is a recipe from Corsica.
100 g (3½ oz) chestnut flour
750 ml (1½ pints) milk
150 g (5 oz) sugar
butter
4 eggs
Put the chestnut flour, milk and sugar into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring frequently until the flour lumps have vanished. Continue to simmer, just short of boiling until the mixture becomes quite thick (about 10 minutes). Line a round oven dish, about 5 cm deep, with greaseproof paper, and rub a little butter over the paper. Beat the eggs in a bowl, and stir into the chestnut mixture. Pour into the dish and bake in an oven at 160°C/gas 3 for 40 minutes. Leave to cool overnight., or for at least a few hours, and turn upside down on to a large plate before serving.
PS: Chestnut flour can be substituted for wheat flour in almost any recipe, provided you add baking powder to help it rise a little. Try it, for instance, in a Yorkshire pudding, cooked under the meat.
© Gary K Smith/FLPA
© Michael Krabs/Imagebroker/FLPA
© David Hosking/FLPA
Oak OaQuercus robur/Quercus petraea
A common deciduous tree up to 35 m (115 ft) high, typically with a broad, domed crown. The two common species are pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), which occurs throughout Britain, and sessile oak (Q. petraea), which is the dominant species in northern and western Britain, and in Ireland. Leaves are distinctively shaped, with irregular lobes. The fruits (acorns) ripen in September to October.
The oak tree has formed part of our folklore and history for centuries, not only as a source of timber for building houses and ships but also as a source of food. Like beechmast, however, the chief economic use of acorns has been as animal fodder, and they have been used as human food chiefly in times of famine. The raw kernels are forbiddingly bitter to most palates, but chopped and roasted they can be used as a substitute for almonds. In Europe the most common use of acorns has been to roast them as a substitute for coffee, and they were recommended for this role during the Second World War. Chop the kernels, roast to a light brown colour, grind up, then roast again.