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Chestnut Stuffing
1 quart chestnuts
2 tablespoons cream
¼ cup bread-crums
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter or other Onion-juice, if desired fat
Shell and blanch the chestnuts and cook in boiling water until tender. While they are still hot, rub them through a coarse sieve or colander. Add other ingredients in order given.
A plain chestnut purée stuffing, thickened with a little crumb and enriched with butter and cream. The measurements are by volume in the shell, which is the only genuinely confusing part.
- A quart of chestnutsMeasured in the shell, that is roughly 1.5 lb of whole nuts, giving about 2 cups of purée once shelled and cooked. A 14-16 oz jar or vacuum pack of peeled cooked chestnuts is the direct modern substitute; simmer them briefly to soften and skip the shelling entirely.
- Shell and blanch"blanch" here is about getting the bitter inner skin off: a short scald or boil loosens it so it can be rubbed away. Score an X in the flat side, boil about 5 minutes (or, in a modern oven, roast hot for 15-20 minutes), then peel while hot — the skin welds itself on as the nut cools.
- Cooking timePeeled chestnuts need 20-30 minutes at a bare simmer to go floury and soft enough to sieve. Undercooked chestnuts will not pass through a colander and the stuffing turns gritty.
- Rub them through while hotThis is the hinge. Cold chestnut purée is claggy and resists the sieve; a potato ricer or food mill does the same job faster. A food processor will work but gives a pastier texture than the original intends.
- Onion-juiceGrate an onion on the fine side of a box grater and press the pulp in a sieve — a teaspoon or two is plenty. It flavours without adding moisture or visible pieces. The recipe lists it as optional.
- Seasoning and yieldAbout 2 cups, enough for a small bird of around 3 lb, or as a side dish. Chestnuts are bland and sweet and will take considerably more salt than seems right; taste before it goes into the bird.
- Cooking the stuffingPack loosely so heat can penetrate, and take the centre of the stuffing to 165F on a thermometer. Baked separately in a buttered dish, 30-35 minutes at 350F, covered for most of it.
Chestnuts were a far more ordinary ingredient in American kitchens of the 1900s and 1910s than they are now: the American chestnut still stood in eastern forests, and the nuts were cheap, seasonal and sold by the peck in autumn markets. The blight identified in New York in 1904 had, within a few decades, effectively removed the tree as a food source, and chestnuts in the United States became a mostly imported, mostly holiday item — which is why this stuffing now reads as festive rather than everyday. The Butterick book, published by a pattern company for the household reader, files it among stuffings for fish, meat, poultry and game.