Cook chestnuts however you like: Roast them in the oven, cook them in a pot or eat them raw. Depending on the method of preparation, you have to prepare the chestnuts differently. We show you how to prepare chestnuts.
Cook chestnuts correctly: Roast them in the oven
Chestnuts from the oven taste particularly delicious. Because here the edible chestnuts keep their typical taste. Roasted chestnuts from the oven are particularly good for snacking. How to prepare chestnuts in the oven:
First cut off the pointed brush of the chestnuts with scissors.
Use a sharp knife to slit a cross into the skin of the chestnuts. This is important so that the chestnuts do not burst open from the heat. Depending on the size of the sweet chestnut, the cross cut should be about one and a half centimeters long.
Now you can put the chestnuts in the oven at 175 degrees and circulating air.
Place a bowl of tap water next to the chestnuts so that the chestnuts don’t dry out while roasting.
Cut the chestnuts correctly: It doesn’t matter whether you make the cross on the flat side or on the lower end. It is only important that the shell is really severed and the cut is big enough. It doesn’t matter at all if you cut the flesh in the process.
Tip: You don’t have to preheat the oven to prepare the chestnuts. After about 20 minutes, check if the chestnuts are ready. You can tell by the fact that the indentations have clearly opened up and the shell is a bit darker (see picture). Then you can take them out of the oven and remove the shells. If your oven only heats up slowly to 175 degrees, the chestnuts can take up to 30 minutes in the oven.
Cook the chestnuts in the pot
You can also prepare chestnuts as a side dish. Because chestnuts contain a lot of starch and thus replace potatoes. The dish is particularly useful if you have your own tree in the garden – because bought chestnuts are quite expensive. How to prepare chestnuts in a pot:
First, slit the chestnuts crosswise. The incision should be about one and a half centimeters long and reach down to the flesh of the fruit.
Then boil the chestnuts in lightly salted water for about 20 minutes.
The chestnuts are done when the skin has split open at the indentations.
Then you can let them cool down a bit and remove the shell.
Alternatively: prepare chestnuts raw or fry them in a pan
You can also eat chestnuts raw. The taste is very reminiscent of walnuts. You have to remove the peel with a sharp knife beforehand, then the light-colored flesh is already in front of you.
Alternatively, you can roast chestnuts in a cast-iron pan with a lid. To do this, you have to slit open the chestnuts, otherwise they will burst. Keep the following in mind when preparing the chestnuts like this:
Don’t use oil, instead put the chestnuts directly into the hot pan.
Roast the chestnuts at low temperature until the shell opens.
To prevent the chestnuts from burning, you should keep tossing them in the pan.
How healthy are chestnuts really?
Chestnuts are available from the end of September/beginning of October. They are a real power food: chestnuts contain a lot of high-quality protein and much less fat than nuts. In addition, they are rich in potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, as well as vitamin E, vitamin C and almost all B vitamins as well as beta carotene.
If you buy chestnuts at the market in autumn or at the Christmas market in winter, they are usually very expensive. But chestnuts also grow in many parks and deciduous forests. Although they are much rarer than the normal chestnuts (which are poisonous, by the way), once you have found a few trees, you can harvest many chestnuts there every year. Because there are up to three chestnuts in each shell. Walking carefully through parks and forests can therefore be worthwhile.
