What's in Season: Chestnuts

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What's in Season: Chestnuts Every winter, chestnuts make their obligatory appearance here on the streets of New York. Small bags of roasted nuts warm the hands, but all too frequently not the soul. Chestnuts are a fickle beast -- to steal a line from a recent television commercial -- but you don’t need to be an expert chef to roast your own, and you certainly don’t need any special equipment!

Many of us associate the holidays with chestnuts, roasting over an open fire, as may be the case. The truth is the chestnut season starts in late October to early November but it really hits its peak just as the holidays roll around. You might see them in your grocer's produce section today, but they’re not going to be there for too long, at least not at their peak, so let’s roast up some chestnuts!

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Comments

Isaac42

98135 25

What does "score" mean in this context? Are we talking about nicking the surface, or cutting clear through the shell?

Dec 23, 2010 at 10:39 AM
Matthk

386151 1

Score indicates that you should create a small (1/2" x 1/2") cross cut on the surface of the nut, so you see the resulting plus sign when you are done. The cross hatch should only go deep enough to cut the thin but hard shell on top. A great substitution for this is to just cook up some Japanes sweet potatoes. They have an extremely close flavor profile but are far easier to prepare and cost about half the price.

Dec 23, 2010 at 11:23 AM