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Chestnuts and Saints

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By Helen Lee Gray
St. Martinho or St. Martin of Tours, became the first non- martyr saint to receive official church worship and became one of the most popular saints in medieval Europe. (Source wikipedia). His feast day is 11 November, deep into autumn and the chestnut season.

In Portugal, as it's chestnut season 'Magustos'are celebrated in St. Martinho's name. A magusto is a group  of friends and/or family who get together and bake and eat chestnuts. 


We have our village magusto at the weekend. 

Meanwhile at home I've been celebrating the chestnut instead of the saint.  This 'celebration' involves collecting the chestnut harvest, splitting, cooking and shelling hundreds of these shiny brown chestnuts. Well, there's not much else to do on a wet Monday in these hills.


Now I've got a bowl full of chestnuts I'm looking for recipes.  Here's what I've tried so far:

Chestnut cake.  Made by using blitzed chestnuts instead of regular flour.  I used Rachel Allen's Italian hazelnut cake as a base recipe. 
http://thatseasypeasy.blogspot.com/2014/07/heres-rachel-allens-italian-hazelnut.html?m=1

Alas my chestnut version looked like a  Spanish tortilla! Tasted nice (especially served with caramel condensed milk) looked like hell. It wasn't worth a photo!

Sweet potato, squash and chestnut curry. Using Mildred's recipe as inspiration. 

http://www.mildreds.co.uk/2017/02/13/recipe-sri-lankan-sweet-potato-and-cashew-nut-curry-mildreds-kings-cross-one-year-birthday/

By cooking in some chestnuts it added a really good extra texture to this delicious curry. It's especially good when your Portuguese teacher gives you the squash and sweet potato from her garden.  

Autumn pasta. A Peter WD special recipe. Roasted autumn veg swimming in locally pressed olive oil, with chestnuts dropped in. All tossed with tagliatelle.  Totally delicious.

Creme de Marron (chestnut cream). 

https://food52.com/blog/16144-a-not-nutella-french-spread-for-oatmeal-toasts-yogurt-etc-etc-etc

It's sitting in a jar in the pantry. It'll sit there until it's chucked away in two years time when I cull all the jams and jellies! 

The hardest thing to do, and my burnt thumb can confirm this, is the cooking and shelling of the chestnuts. If you don't need whole chestnuts (and none of the above recipes need whole chestnuts), then this is how I do it.

Put a large pan of water on and simmer the water.

Get a really sharp knife and cut the chestnuts almost all the way through. 


Check the chestnut for bugs. Believe me, there's nothing worse than burning your fingers on a hot chestnut to find a boiled maggot inside it.  Throw the bug-free chestnuts into the water. 

Simmer for 15 mins. The water turns a muddy brown colour. 


Drain the chestnuts, but leave them in the drainer sitting over the hot water. 

The chestnuts have an outer shiny layer and an inner 'skin'. This skin is easier to remove when the chestnut is hot...although sometimes it's almost impossible to get it off! So some skins remain on!


Having asbestos fingers helps now! While the chestnuts are still hot, shell them by gently squeezing them. Most will pop out, but some you'll need to work at. Don't worry if the skin stays on some. Use these in your savory dishes and save and 'bald' chestnuts for your sweets. 


Happy St. Martinho day for 11 November,  enjoy your magusto.









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