Boiled Chestnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Make a slight incision in the outer skin of each chestnut to prevent bursting.
Boil plenty of water with ½ tablespoon of coarse sea salt.
Cook and serve
Add the chestnuts and boil for 30 to 60 minutes, checking for softness.
Drain the chestnuts and wipe them with a coarse cloth.
Serve quickly in a hot napkin.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Chestnuts
- The main ingredient; boiling softens its starchy flesh so it becomes tender to eat.
The step that matters
Scoring the chestnut skins. A slit in the outer skin lets steam escape as the nut heats, so the chestnut is less likely to burst or split open during boiling.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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