#roasting chestnuts

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . . November 1957.

I found all these chestnuts this morning, and realized it would be a good day to go and roast them. My only condition for this is that it didn't rain in the last few days, so I would be able to find dry wood for the fire. Here's the preparation:

I carved in little x's on the chestnuts, if you don't do this, they explode in the fire, I've tried it out! I gathered all my resources: an old pan, some newspapers, matches, some easily flammable sticks, and the chestnuts. I packed it in my backpack and added a bottle of water, which is also important!

Now we can start the adventure, here's where we're going:

We have arrived! Now let's see how our designated fire spot looks like:

It is, in fact, filled with mud. From here on, we are doing chores. The first chore is to find some rocks, and position them so they can hold the fire up, because the fire should not be lit on mud. There's plenty rocks around the river so this wasn't a lot of work!

The next chore is to find fuel for the fire. There's little branches, sticks, pieces of bark and wooden debris everywhere, so this is a matter of foraging. We are going around picking up little sticks and wooden logs!

It's almost like a little cleanup, the place looks nicer afterwards. Now, these need to be broken into smaller pieces, and sorted into categories of 'tiny branches, medium sticks, and big pieces of wood'. There we go:

It is a satisfying task, and a good way to figure out which pieces are truly dry; dry wood will snap easily, if it's bendy and refusing to break, then it's not the best idea to put it in a fire, it's going to cause a lot of smoke and refuse to catch on fire quickly.

Now we can build a fire!

I don't know what the professional way for this is, but I've been lighting fires since I was a kid so I got this. I want the fire to be as far away from mud as possible, and for it to draw oxygen from underneath, so I will first add a few of the biggest sticks, and light the fire on top of them. This will make sure the fire has air! Then I'm scrunching up some newspapers, and adding the driest little sticks on top of them. I'm not trying to make this part airy, I'm trying to surround the newspapers with pieces of wood completely, so the heat cannot escape! The more heat there is trapped under the wood, the easier it will all light up. Heat escaping out would be a waste.

It's all ready, I'm grabbing the matches and lighting the newspapers:

I took a video of how fast this fire started, and it was almost scary, I had to keep backing away to not get burned. This is 10 seconds after I lit the newspapers:

The fire is immediately successful, so much so that I added everything I found on it, and then had to go get more pieces of wood! The fire for roasting chestnuts needs to achieve a certain amount of heat before we can start; we need glowing embers. I let it burn for 15 minutes, and at that point it is so hot I can't even get near anymore, and I could see embers. Now the fire is to be rearranged so it can accommodate the pan!

I moved the wood around so the glowing embers were exposed and put the pan right on top of them; it's being held by other sturdy pieces of wood that are not going to fall apart easily.

While they were roasting, I took some time to make a little origami box out of newspapers, to put the chestnuts in when they're done. After about 20 minutes of roasting they were finished!

I tried one and they're perfect! And at this point if you remember to look up, there's a beautiful sunset going on in the river:

Chestnuts

Chestnuts are among my favorite Christmas fare. Nat King Cole's song served as the catalyst for everything, and you've undoubtedly heard the opening line of "The Christmas Song"—"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire." I was curious to give this nut a taste, so I did. Since then, I've become addicted. What say you, too? Would you mind sharing your preferred holiday snack?

Chestnuts are my favorite ingredient to use in the fall, especially for the holidays. I always find that they are meaty, hearty and have a mysterious refinement when cooked or roasted over sea salt.

There's nothing as evocative of Autumn as the smell of chestnuts roasting. The smoke, the crackling sounds, the heat of the paper bag they've been chucked into in your hands... It's just what one wants on a crisp Autumn day. When we were little, my sister, my cousins and i used to forage them on walks in the woods with our grandfather, and later that afternoon, he would roast them in the chimney. Or, we'd plead for some when we'd go watch the Christmas Windows at Le Printemps and Les Galeries Lafayette with our parents, and always ended up with the little bounty of delicious marrons chauds!

But there's something even more pleasing about lighting a fire in your garden in the chill night, and cooking Roasted Chestnuts as the moon glows overhead. It's still all there, the smoke, the crackling sounds, and even a bottle of last year's (home-brewed) Cider to make a feast, and perhaps a new tradition, of it! Happy Monday!

Ingredients (serves 2):

18 to 20 beautiful, large fresh chestnuts*

a chestnut pan (or you can hammer holes in an old frying pan, which is what my dad did years ago!)

*if you have picked them in the woods rather than bought them at the market, carefully remove the prickly burr (using gardening gloves!), and dust the chestnuts with a clean towel

Light a fire, in a fire pit, barbecue or chimney, if you have one. Preferably with wood, rather than coal.

Meanwhile, using a sharp knife, score a thin slit on each of the chestnuts.

When the fire is still up, but the wood is mostly red embers, place a grate over the fire pit.

Place prepared chestnuts in the pan with holes, and sit on the grate, over the fire.

Cook, shaking the pan often, to roast evenly, until the chestnuts are browned and charred, and their skin (peel) open up from the slit, about 20 to 25 minutes, or even a little more if they are big.