Ingredients
- chestnut
Directions
The Holey-Pan Method: Use this method for open fires, gas stoves, bonfires, and barbecues. Pick up an old uncoated metal pan from a secondhand store (or sacrifice an exhausted one of your own), and drill lots of holes in it, about the width of a pencil.
Cut little crosses into the chestnuts, either on the sides or at the base. This is to stop them from exploding, which is very likely to happen unless you give the steam a route to escape.
Place the chestnuts in a holey pan and place the pan over a fire. (This method also works happily over a normal gas stove.) Watch the pan throughout cooking, shaking it every now and then to prevent the chestnuts from burning too much -- you want them to char but not burn to a cinder.
It will take around 10-20 minutes for them to cook, depending on the size of the nuts and the heat of the flame, during which time the nominated cook -- not your good self, as you’ll probably be elsewhere cooking something extraordinary -- should be plied with glasses of port. Test one chestnut for tenderness and then leave the whole bunch to cool a little before serving with some salt.
Oven Method: Preheat the oven to 400?F. Cut little crosses in the chestnuts as described before, then place them in a roasting pan and cook uncovered for 20-30 minutes.
Roasted chestnuts are best eaten still warm to the touch and peeled by the eater. We like dipping them in a little bowl of sea salt.
Recipe from The Extraordinary Cookbook: How to Make Meals Your Friends Will Never Forget by Stefan Gates/Kyle Books, 2011.
