Peeling sweet chestnuts - illustrated stage by stage

At this time of year, the search hits for my blog change from those seeking advice on broody chickens to those seeking advice on peeling sweet chestnuts.  While my previous post on this was fine, when I was doing a recent pile of chestnuts, I thought a better illustrated post might be in order.

I have found that boiling up 4 or 5 chestnuts at a time and replacing them as I go gives a good rhythm to the process and doesn't let the nuts get too mushy, however don't use a posh pan as the tanin that comes out of the membrane is phenomenal.

So first get your chestnuts.

 

Then cut off the bottom of the nut - cut through the membrane so the water can get under it and make your life easier.

 

Then cut off the top of the nut - that irritating little tuft of prickles you can see on the cut off bit.

 

Then take off the rest of the hard outer casing - this is easy enough to do with the aid of a knife.

 

Once you have a few prepared in this way, get them into the boiling water - you don't have to do this next stage immediately if you cover the bowl of nuts with cling film, but you only have another 24 hours to do the rest.

 
Once boiled for around 4 minutes, fish them out and they look a bit like this.  You can see the water on the plate is highly coloured - this maroon tainted water is the stickiest, nastiest stuff around and will stain a stainless steel sink!  Anyway, now to peel off the membrane.

 
Doesn't that look easy, peeling away the membrane?  Isn't that satisfying?  Here is another shot.

 

Do make sure you get the bits out of the main crevices at least - that dark line had to come off or it would have made anything bitter.

 
And here are the finished product, ready for eating as they are or for whatever recipies you have in mind, or you can pop them in a bag and freeze them like this for future use.  You will see that not all are as clean of membrane as you would like.  Nature, in her infinite variety, sometimes makes these a right pain to peel!  I hope this helps you to peel yours more easily.

Finally, a word of caution, when you are doing all this, keep an eye out for small holes and critters - normally in the biggest, fattest and juiciest of nuts!