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Chestnut Sandwich
Shell and blanch the chestnuts, then boil fifteen minutes; drain and cool, and when cool chop fine. Add an equal quantity of finely chopped celery, moisten with a little French dressing, mix, and put between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread, with a crisp lettuce leaf between.
A straightforward filling that depends almost entirely on the chestnuts being cooked through and the celery being cut fine enough to bind rather than crunch its way out of the sandwich.
- Shelling and blanchingScore an X through the shell of each nut and roast or boil briefly, then peel while hot — both the hard shell and the bitter inner skin must come away. Cold chestnuts are nearly impossible to peel, so work in small batches and keep the rest warm.
- Fifteen minutes is not enoughFifteen minutes may not be enough -- peeled chestnuts often need longer at a simmer to become genuinely tender, and at fifteen they can still be chalky in the centre. Test one with a knife tip before draining.
- Vacuum-packed chestnutsJarred or vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts, sold in autumn and around the holidays, skip the shelling entirely. They are already tender, so chop and use as is. Do not substitute water chestnuts, which are unrelated.
- French dressingIn American books of this period this means a simple oil-and-vinegar vinaigrette, roughly three parts oil to one of vinegar with salt and pepper — not the sweet orange bottled dressing sold under that name today.
- Moisten, do not soakChestnuts are starchy and drink up dressing. Add a teaspoon at a time until the mixture just holds together; too much and the bread goes damp before it reaches the table.
- Quantities and yieldAbout a cup of chopped chestnuts and a cup of chopped celery should fill roughly six to eight sandwiches cut in the thin style the recipe calls for. A pound of chestnuts in the shell yields somewhere around two to two and a half cups peeled.
- AssemblyButter the bread right to the edges — the thin film is what keeps the dressing from soaking in. Assemble shortly before serving and keep covered with a damp cloth if they must wait.
Sandwich books proliferated in America in the first decades of the twentieth century, when afternoon teas, card parties and club luncheons created steady demand for small, tidy things to eat off a plate held in one hand. A whole chapter of nut sandwiches was standard, and chestnuts were an obvious candidate: until the blight that swept the American chestnut in the first half of the century, the nuts were cheap and abundant, and were a familiar autumn street food in eastern cities. The pairing with celery and vinaigrette follows the logic of the composed salads then fashionable, where a starchy or sweet element was cut with something crisp and something acid. Today most chestnuts on American shelves are imported from Italy, Spain, Turkey or China, a quiet consequence of that blight.