Chestnut (Castanea sativa) belongs to the beech family. His Latin name comes from the city of Castanea, in Thessaly (Greece), a city famous for its beautiful trees.

What do we know about chestnuts?

Chestnut is a nut of the wild or cultivated chestnut tree. The chestnut tree can reach 35 meters in height. It has long leaves with jagged edges, blooms in May-June with long "earrings", flowers are very popular among bees (chestnut honey, mustard color, bitter taste, one of the best in useful properties). Not all chestnuts are edible: for example, horse chestnuts and other wild varieties are not intended for human consumption.

The thorns in which the nut hides are chestnut fruits. The centers of growth of cultivated chestnut trees are the Mediterranean, East Asia, and the Atlantic coast of the USA. In a number of countries - France, for example, chestnuts are an integral part of cooking.

How to choose chestnuts?

They should be hard and glossy, uniform in size, large and heavy. When buying, one must keep in mind that the best chestnuts are seasonal: they ripen in late October and early November. However, if desired, they can be bought both freshly frozen, peeled, and pickled, including in Russia. So you can cook all year round.

How to clean chestnuts?

How to cook chestnuts? How to determine readiness?

Chestnuts can be simply boiled and then peeled. You can make a pre-cut with a very sharp knife and cook for about half an hour in salted water with a sprig of dill for flavor.

To check readiness, a cooking needle is inserted into the chestnut. Chestnuts can burst - this is also proof that they can be removed from the fire. If you fry them in a pan, you should know that the finished ones “jump” and “explode”.

Before putting the chestnuts in the oven, add a little butter to a baking sheet, then they will become softer. To achieve the same result, pour a little vegetable oil into the water in which you will cook the chestnuts.

Chestnuts are used very widely in Mediterranean cuisine: for the preparation of bakery and confectionery products (flour and fruits), jams, mousses, soufflés, mashed potatoes, pancakes, soups, salads, creams, fillings for meat pies, for stuffing poultry or as side dishes for offal. There are very famous dishes, real masterpieces: and "drunk" chestnuts.

How to store chestnuts?

Fresh chestnuts keep in the refrigerator for several days. After this time, they are covered with mold. Chestnuts can be stored in the sand, like carrots and beets, for several months. You can freeze them boiled or baked, then they are also stored for a long time.

What are the properties of chestnut?

Chestnut is very nutritious and "energetic". Eating it will help you avoid snacking during the day. Chestnut is well digested when cooked. Raw chestnuts or cooked chestnuts in large quantities can lead to active gas formation.

Chestnut is rich in potassium, magnesium, sulfur and iron, it contains vitamins B1, B2 and C.

The energy value of chestnut is:
196 calories per 100 grams, or 1.63 g of protein, 1.25 g of fat and 44.17 g of carbohydrates

Duncan

How long do raw chestnuts keep?

I bought some chestnuts in the fall for Christmas but haven't used them all yet. How long do they keep? How would I tell if they are "spoiled"? They look the same as when I bought them (no flaws), but may weigh less (they feel light) and feel harder to the touch (but I could be wrong).

Chef_Code

One way to tell they are "spoiled" is through smell, the essential or natural oil in the chestnuts will become rancid, which will also give them an unpleasant (bitter) taste, similar to the skin of the hide. chestnuts are just a lot stronger.

Answers

SAJ14SAJ

Storage of chestnuts is not the same as most nuts. Fresh chestnuts should be stored like carrots. Chestnuts are made up of about 40-50% water and thus will go bad if not stored properly. Therefore, chestnuts should be stored with great care and attention. Ideal storage conditions for chestnuts are 33-35 degrees Fahrenheit and 85-90% humidity. We recommend storing chestnuts in covered containers in the coldest part of the refrigerator. Stored properly in the refrigerator, chestnuts can have a shelf life of about 2-3 weeks. If you plan to use the chestnuts shortly after receiving them, simply place them in a covered container in the coldest part of the refrigerator. The colder the better.

Washington Chestnut offers the following information on storing chestnuts to prevent mold, which they indicate chestnuts are susceptible to due to their high water content:

1. Don't let fresh chestnuts freeze and thaw (unless you're freezing for a reason)
2. Never store chestnuts in a sealed plastic bag (except dry or frozen)
3. Store chestnuts in the refrigerator unless you dry or sweeten the chestnuts
4. If there is black mold in the chestnut kernel, do not eat the chestnut
5. Chestnuts can be stored in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 weeks.
6. Cooked chestnuts should also be stored in the refrigerator if not consumed immediately.
7. Never bathe chestnuts in plain water - this causes mold spores to be transferred to all chestnuts that pass through the tub water - instead, rinse them with clean, running tap water.
8. Try to buy fresh chestnuts close to the time you want to eat them.

Lee Williams

I grow and sell fresh chestnuts. The secret to long-term storage is proper handling of chestnuts within the first 24 hours after harvest, before any deterioration begins. During these 24 hours, our nuts are cleaned, graded, sorted and placed under controlled humidity refrigeration. Due to seasonal demand, we usually place unsold fresh nuts in the kiln around December 15th for use with next year's dried produce. As of this date, it's still ok. Always try to buy a farm directly from an American manufacturer. Last year we ate fresh nuts, saved our veggie bread every night until our personal stash was depleted, which was the first of April. I will have to give properly stored nuts a longer shelf life than 2-3 weeks.

Keith Gregory

Chestnuts spoil in two ways: they become moldy, dry out, and become almost impossible to eat when roasted. It is possible that when they are hard and dry they may be ground into flour or something else; I have never tried it.

Being light is a really good sign that they have dried out. Some chestnuts get moldy when I buy them, and I'm sure the ones I bought before Christmas that are still on my counter are now either moldy or hard. The good news is that you can't miss mold when you're shelling boiled chestnuts, and you often notice it when you're cutting X before you cook them. Don't eat moldy. The firmness won't hurt you, so bake them quickly and see if you have any other good ones (probably not). But don't leave them for Valentine!

Orbling

I find that they tend to dry out rather than rot rather quickly. They will get heavier and lighter, and the projectiles will become more brittle and have visible gaps between the shell and the nut, allowing for the indentation that will occur. The nuts inside dry out when they dry out which causes this. As a rule, it becomes immediately apparent when cutting the crosses in the casings for roasting, which ones are affected.

When they are, they roast very hard and dry, and often the shells are hard to remove - not very nice all around, though you could probably grind them up if chestnut flour was par for the course. It takes some time before the flavor goes rancid. In short, if you're using them whole or sliced, try using heavier ones that feel perfectly firm and don't leave them out for too long. I find that the best dates in stores are usually within a week or so of purchase, and that's not a bad estimate of when they start to go out of date.

Kev Owen

Put the chestnuts in a sink of water... the floats are spoiled... the good ones are heavier and will sink.

Larry Schmidt

I bought a few last November, I kept them in a small refrigerator in my office. These are cycles between 25 and 35 degrees. Today April ninth I took 2 to check if I cleaned them both, there was no black mold or any mold and they didn't dry out and become hard, I ate one and it was delicious. It seems like the temperature rotating between freezing and slightly above freezing keeps them fresh and good.

Stephie ♦

Have you eaten raw chestnuts?

Who, if not mothers, knows that our children love to remember at 21-22 pm that tomorrow they need to bring crafts made from natural materials, a bouquet of dried leaves and flowers, a herbarium and so on. And what to do? We get ready and with a flashlight we go to collect “reserves”, and then we sculpt, glue, paint all night, most often already without a child. And sometimes they give a task in the garden, it seems it’s still light, but it’s raining outside. How to collect the right material? In order to at least partially protect myself from this (it will not work completely, unfortunately), I began to collect a “collection” of natural materials, highlighting for this a small shoe box and various smaller boxes and boxes that I put into this very box from under shoes. Well, plus a variety of books help. So what can we prepare?

1. We dry various leaves. On the way home, pick up a few leaves from different trees. Colors can also be different, which come across: yellow, green, red ... The main thing is to select the most beautiful, and not strive to gain more. After all, we still have many fine days ahead of us and we will have time to collect a fairly large number of leaves. But let it be the most beautiful.

At home, we review the “prey” once again, if there are spoiled ones (accidentally, they didn’t finish watching) or you simply don’t like them, we safely send them to the trash can. We wash the rest under running water, put it on a surface covered with paper or cloth (I cover it with disposable rags from a roll), let it dry with moisture and then put it in a book, and the book can be put back on the shelf. Or you can spread it between sheets of plain paper and press it down with something heavy. And let them dry, then come in handy.

By the way, if you need to dry the leaves very urgently, then put them between two sheets of white paper and iron them several times with a hot iron.

2. "Airplanes" or "turntables" from maple. On the way home, after the maple seeds ripen, we cut off several brushes with the child. At home, carefully remove them from the branches, leaving them in pairs, sort through, remove the spoiled ones. Then we wash and dry for several days on any surface covered with paper: on the table, on the windowsill, on the floor. As soon as they dry, we pour them into a box and send them to a large box or to a cabinet with materials for crafts.

3. Chestnuts and acorns. Perhaps the most popular material for crafts. And not always they are on the trees growing near the house. Therefore, it is better to stock up on them in advance, you don’t need a lot, but a dozen or two won’t hurt. By the way, I sometimes find acorns without hats and separately - hats. I also collect this, sometimes I need hats, sometimes acorns, and sometimes whole acorns with hats.

After I have collected acorns and chestnuts, I wash them well under running water, then dry them for several days in a cool, well-ventilated area (I usually have a small shed). After the fruits have dried, I put them in a box, always shifting them with crumpled paper (you can store them in bulk, but with paper they dry out less and “shrink”). Then I put them in a box with the rest of the natural materials.

4. Cones. The principle is the same as with acorns: I collect, wash, dry. Except for some nuances. More often I collect still closed cones, they are easier to wash. And they open up later, in the process of drying, from heat. Then I clean some of it in this form, some I bleach. Perfectly white do not turn out, of course, but brighten. I do not bleach in bleach, in any case! (For some reason, there is a lot of information on the Internet about bleaching in bleach, I tried it, the “petals” of the cone changed their structure, became soft). How I bleach: wash well, dry. Then I dip for a while in the "mole" or similar means. I pull out, wash and dry until the cones open (they close from moisture), rinse again and dry again. Then I put it in a special solution for bleaching wood (I buy it in hardware stores), periodically drying it if the bump is closed. After a few days, I take it out, wash it, dry it, rinse it again and dry it. That's all. They say that solutions containing acid also bleach well. But I haven't tried it, so I can't say.

5. Various twigs and sticks. Completely "various": both in length and thickness, even and not very. They are also necessarily present in my box with natural materials. Well washed and dried.

6. If it is possible to get it, then a bag with hay or straw. It might come in handy too.

What else is in the box: wild rose, dried flowers, reeds, some dried flowers, pumpkin seeds, nuts, sunflower seeds. And of course - interesting pebbles, including flat pebbles. She's so fun to color. And you can add anything you find interesting to the box, the larger the stock, the easier it is to make crafts!

Unfortunately, I can’t show my box yet, last year’s stocks have run out, and this year they have just begun to collect stocks.

In addition, chestnut has other advantages: it is a honey plant, its leaves are used in traditional medicine, and wood is used to make high-quality wine barrels, and is generally highly valued as a building material.

Given the huge demand for chestnuts abroad. The lack of competition in this sector of crop production in Ukraine, the planting of chestnut orchards on large areas, can be a good source of income.

If you are not at all familiar with the technology of growing edible chestnut, and also do not know if you will be able to sell its fruits and seedlings, start by planting one tree on your site.

Characteristics

The chestnut blossoms annually and abundantly, after the leaves bloom, from mid-May, for 15-16 days. The flowers are collected in long spiky inflorescences. In inflorescences located at the ends of the branches, pistillate (female) flowers are located on the lower part of the flower stem, and staminate (male) flowers are located above.

Male flowers are whitish with a yellow tint, smell pleasant and are collected in three or more balls, after flowering they fall off along with the spikelet stem..

greenish female flowers form glomeruli, usually of three flowers, surrounded by a four-parted cupule (wrapper) with spines.

Fruits - nuts, ripen from mid-September to mid-November. Ripe, fall to the ground. They have a characteristic chestnut color with a clearly visible light spot at the base.

The top of the fruit is elongated into a spout formed from the dried perianth and pistil columns. Usually there is one seed in the fruit, sometimes two or three.

How to propagate a real chestnut?

Chestnut is propagated by seedlings from shoots and by sowing fruits. I harvest the fruits in the fall from the best trees, select the largest ones and without delay, immediately, mix it with wet (not wet) sand or steamed sawdust and lower it into a cold (temperature not higher than 9 ° C) basement for storage until spring, that is, until the moment of sowing.

If there are few seeds, they can be placed in a regular refrigerator.

Our advice:

So that chestnuts do not dry out, which is why their germination is significantly reduced, in winter I constantly monitor the moisture content of sawdust.

If necessary, I moisten them with several handfuls of snow, if there is no snow, I spray them with melt water.

In the spring, at the beginning of May, I take out the seeds from the basement and inspect them. During this time, almost all chestnuts germinate and give roots 10-20, and sometimes 30 mm long.

I sow them in prepared holes to a depth of 7-9 cm.

Necessary care

I mulch the surface with humus. Care consists in timely weeding and loosening. I don't feed seedlings.

In the northern regions, the sowing of seedlings of southern crops should be carried out later, planning the emergence of seedlings in mid-June.

Chestnut seedlings are quite shade-tolerant. At first, they need protection from frost.

At a young age, transplantation is well tolerated.

Our advice:

They grow best on acidic brown forest loams, develop well on fertile, moist soils, and do not withstand droughts.

They can grow on stony infertile soils, but are very oppressed on heavy, waterlogged ones. Poorly withstand a high content of lime in the soil.

The chestnut blossoms in the seventh year after planting.

What crop can be harvested?

An adult tree produces 50-60 kg of nuts, and from 1 to 3 tons of fruits can be harvested from 1 ha of a chestnut forest.

Abundant fruiting is repeated every 2-5 years.

How to store chestnut fruits?

Chestnuts are 50% water and should be refrigerated to keep from drying out:

• fresh chestnuts in the shell are stored at room temperature a week;
• keep fresh for a month in the refrigerator;
• frozen - up to six months.

Beneficial features

Chestnut real, or edible (another name is sowing chestnut), is an exceptionally valuable honey and nut-bearing crop of the beech family.

Its fruits contain a lot of easily digestible carbohydrates (in dry fruits up to 70%), 5-7% proteins and 2-3% fats (this is more than in wheat), about 1% malic and citric acid, raw fruits even contain vitamins B and S.

Excellent honey plant

Chestnut is a honey plant. In a chestnut forest, bees collect almost as much honey as in a linden forest.

Chestnut honey is dark in color, liquid, slightly bitter (bitterness is removed when heated), but has high healing properties.

It is used mainly in the confectionery industry and for winter feeding of bees.

How to use real chestnut fruit in cooking?

• On the island of Corsica, they replace bread.
• In pre-Columbian times, when the potato had not yet been brought to Europe, entire families of the poor were saved from starvation thanks to the fruits of the chestnut.
• At the same time, chestnut is a frequent ingredient in haute cuisine dishes, gourmet menus. Chestnuts are eaten raw, baked, boiled and fried.
• Dried flour is used to make flour, which is almost as nutritious as wheat flour.
• A small admixture of chestnut flour to wheat improves the taste of bread.
• In Italy and France, chestnut flour is twice as expensive as flour from peas, beans, beans and lentils.
• Confectioners use chestnuts to make pastries, cakes and sweets.
• Roasted chestnuts are used as a substitute for coffee.

Larisa MARUSHCHAK
© Magazine "Ogorodnik"
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Photo: pixabay.com

In terms of their nutritional composition, edible chestnuts resemble grain muesli. In France, these fruits have become almost national dish: not a single celebration of the onset of autumn takes place there without baked chestnuts. They fell in love in our country. In this article, we will tell you how to keep chestnuts at home in order to preserve their taste and benefits.

You should know how to keep chestnuts so that you can enjoy them all year round.

Traditionally, chestnuts are considered a winter commodity, although they are harvested in September. They can be purchased in the markets until March, as they are stored without problems if you know some rules.

How to store chestnuts

Fresh fruits in a cool place are stored for only a few days. Then they get moldy. But you can cover them with sand, like carrots and beets, then they can lie for several months. But it is best to freeze chestnuts.

AT freezer they can lie for at least 6 months. Do not wrap the fruits in a plastic bag, with such storage, mold will form on them.

Chestnuts in our country come to the shelves:

• fresh unpeeled;
• freshly frozen in a purified form;
• pickled (canned).

Canned chestnuts can be used immediately without additional processing for salads or eating as an independent dish. Freshly frozen are first fried, and then, for example, added to mushroom soup. Fresh ones must first be cut, covered with foil and sent to the oven for baking for 20 minutes. After the fruits are cooked, they can be salted and eaten just like boiled corn.

How they know how to choose and how chestnuts are stored in different countries

In different parts of the world, chestnuts appear on the tables in their natural form and cooked according to original recipes. Mashed potatoes are prepared from them, side dishes for meat dishes, they are boiled and fried. The fruits are widely used in the preparation of confectionery and many other dishes.