Sweet chestnuts - Sweet chestnuts - preserving chestnuts
Sweet chestnuts, or as Maroni say in Austria, dry and preserve, is a very good way to preserve these precious fruits. I found out by experimenting myself.
I worked for years as a cook, so I can draw from this acquired basic knowledge, my other conclusions.
Now to the point
- Remove the chestnuts from the brown skin and, if possible, from the hairy outer skin. It cuts with a vegetable knife with spikes the shell and peels the chestnut. All this is done in the raw state. No cooking necessary.
- If you can not remove the hairy skin, it does not matter, why I'll tell you right away.
- The good thing about this method is that you really only keep the perfect chestnuts. It is important to dispose of all spoiled fruits, brown spots can be cut away, in case of doubt they are disposed of.
- Especially at the lower pointed end of the chestnut can be seen whether it may already have a mold in the interior. These are definitely thrown away because mold toxins are dangerous to our health.
- Now put the chestnuts nice and airy on a baking tray and let it dry for at least 2 weeks. Turn daily by stirring the fruits with your hand.
- Over time, you will notice that one or the other hairy skin is starting to break loose. Now you can remove it.
- The drying process is very important and it is better to dry for longer than too short, because chestnut - you will already know ;-) are very prone mold. The drying is necessarily z. B. in the apartment. (Not for example on the balcony).
- If the chestnuts are of different sizes, the smaller fruits will dry faster, the larger ones will take longer.
- Whether the chestnuts are really dry, you realize that they no longer yield when very tightly squeezed between thumb and forefinger. Then you can put them in a plastic box with a tight lid and keep them for several years.
- Per kilo you need 1 hour to peel them. (Rough estimate).
- The "total preparation time", d. H. the drying process is as mentioned at least 2 weeks.
For the preparation and other processing methods of Maroni there is a separate contribution from me.
Enjoy this beautiful, but very time-consuming work!
PS: Stick your thumbs, with which you keep the chestnuts, necessarily a strong plaster over it, because a cut in the thumb is painful and really does not have to be. ;-)
