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Vanilla Chestnut Preserve

Use large French or Italian chestnuts. Put these up early in the fall before the nuts harden.

Cut a half-inch slit in one side of the chestnut shells; let cook in boiling water two minutes, drain, and dry. To each pint of nuts add a teaspoonful of butter or oil and stir and shake in the oven three or four minutes; then, inserting the point of a knife in the slit made in the shell before cooking, remove shell and skin together. Keep the nuts covered while shelling is in process, - to accelerate the work. Let the chestnuts simmer in boiling water until tender. If cooked rapidly, they will be broken.

Take the weight of the chestnuts in sugar and dissolve in half the measure of water; add a few drops of lemon juice to break the grain of the syrup. Let the chestnuts simmer in the syrup till they look as if the syrup had penetrated through them; add a teaspoonful of vanilla extract for each pint of syrup; store in fruit jars.