I've never cooked with chestnuts, although I've increasingly seen them in the stores around this time of year. I suppose I've never really known how to peel them, and the beautiful dark glossy shells look so difficult I've always given them a miss. After all, it's not like there are street stalls selling piping hot chestnuts on the streets if Sydney in winter. Anyway when I found this recipe in the Coles giveaway recipe magazine and it looked so great, I thought it would be a perfect accompaniment to our Family Luncheon on Easter Sunday.
What followed was a litany of frustration, Youtube searches, burnt fingers and swearing. I got the tough brown outer shell off fine. Well, fine if you count the use of garden shears. But it was the inner shell -rough, barky, stuck like superglue to the nut – that almost defeated me. Every source I could find warned me I needed heat to release the nut from the inner shell. I tried roasting, I tried parboiling. The latter ultimately proved to do the trick, although I think I went through about 500 grams of unpeeled chestnuts to get 200 grams that could be served. The real problem was all the websites told me to release the inner skin I needed to cut the nut on half – but the recipe, for aesthetics if nothing else, needed the nuts to be whole for caramelisation.
I was up until 3am the night before our Luncheon peeling these damn things … and let's just say Scott was lucky to escape with his life when he commented the next morning that (a) why didn't I just buy frozen, peeled chestnuts from the supermarket (answer? I had no idea they stocked them as I've never seen them) and (b) they tasted just like macadamias so I just should have used macadamias. Which is probably a good idea and something I can try as a substitute another time. But it was not something I wanted to hear after the effort I'd put in.
Despite the drama, the salad really is good, and it follows after the jump. Again, the photo above is sourced from the recipe section of the Coles website, from which the recipe came.
Warm Caramelised Chestnut SaladServes 4 as an entree, 10 as a side dish
1/2 bunch celery, ends trimmed 25g butter, chopped 1/3 cup golden syrup 200g peeled chestnuts 150g green beans, blanched and sliced diagonally 100g salad mix 100g blue cheese, crumbled Separate celery stalks and cut into 8cm lengths. Reserve leaves. Using a vegetable peeler, cut celery into ribbons. Place celery and leaves in a bowl of iced water (to make them curl). Melt butter in a frying pan on medium heat, and dadd golden syrup. Simmer for 2 mins, or until golden. Add chestnuts and simmer for 5 minutes or until tender. Drain celery and place in a large bowl. Add beans, salad mix and cheese and toss to combine. Top salad with caramelised chestnuts and drizzle a little of the caramel sauce over the top. Serve immediately.
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