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Chestnuts, Roasted, for Dessert
Cut a little piece of the outer shell off each chestnut; this is to prevent them bursting when hot. Boil them for about ten minutes; do not allow them to cool, but put them into a tin in the oven, or into a Dutch oven before the fire, and let them remain until they are quite soft. Fold them in a napkin, and serve quite hot. Salt should be eaten with them. Time to bake, about ten minutes. Probable cost of chestnuts, 3d. or 4d. per pint. Sufficient, one pint for four or five persons.
A two-stage method — a short boil, then dry heat — that gives softer, sweeter chestnuts than roasting alone. A few of the terms and measures need translating.
- Score deeply, not lightly"A little piece of the outer shell" understates it: cut a clear slit through the shell and the brown inner skin on the flat side of each nut. An unscored chestnut traps steam and can burst violently in a hot oven.
- A pint of chestnutsChestnuts were sold by dry volume. A pint of them in the shell is roughly three-quarters of a pound (around 300-350 g), which is consistent with the stated four or five servings as a dessert nibble.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because none could be. Roast at 400–425F (200–220C); the ten minutes quoted assumes the nuts go in straight from the boiling water, still hot through.
- "Dutch oven" hereNot the lidded cast-iron pot. In this period a Dutch oven of the kind set "before the fire" is the open-fronted tin reflector oven, which bounces radiant heat onto the food. A hot conventional oven does the same job.
- Do not let them coolThe instruction is the hinge of the recipe. The boil softens the kernel and loosens the pellicle; if the nuts cool, that inner skin tightens back onto the flesh and peeling becomes miserable.
- The napkin is functionalFolding them into a thick cloth napkin keeps them hot at table and lets each person peel them without burning their fingers. Serve with flaky salt alongside, as directed.
- Choosing the nutsUse sweet chestnuts (Castanea sativa or the cultivated marron types). They should feel heavy and full; a light, rattling nut has dried out inside and will be leathery whatever you do to it.
Roasted chestnuts belonged to the dessert course of a Victorian dinner, the informal stretch after the cloth was drawn when nuts, dried fruit, biscuits and wine came to the table. Cassell's prices them at threepence or fourpence a pint — sweet chestnuts were a street food as much as a dining-room one, sold hot from braziers in London and other European cities through the winter, a trade generally traced back several centuries. The pairing with salt rather than sugar reflects how the nut was actually eaten in southern Europe, where chestnut flour was a staple carbohydrate in upland districts long before it became a treat.