Walking in the sweet chestnut woods
In October it is impossible to walk in the woods without treading on the prickly round burrs of sweet chestnuts. This year, we weren’t busy building so instead of simply roasting them on the fire, we decided to make our own Crème de châtaigne – in English – Chestnut Jam though it’s more like a nut spread or butter than a traditional jam !
The shop-bought version which they sell in France bears no comparison with the home-made version. It was bland and floury and only when I tasted the finished home-made version did I understand why Monsieur R is such a fan.
The French recipe said 1 hour of preparation time and 45 minutes of cooking – it wasn’t true – but we did make far more than they specified.
For every 2 kilos of peeled chestnuts, you will need 1.5 kilos of sugar, 2 glasses of water, and one vanilla pod. This makes enough for 6 x 500g pots.
Our version starts with a good walk:
Go out in the woods and gather the fattest, biggest, shiniest sweet chestnuts you can find. Ignore small ones (too fiddly to peel) and dry-looking ones (too old). The best taste comes from using the freshest you can find and cooking them as soon as you can. Here in the Tarn, the chestnut woods are everywhere and it’s relatively easy to gather four or five kilos in a couple of hours. If you don’t have access to chestnut woods, the next best thing is bought chestnuts – but again, select carefully.
Back in the kitchen, with a sharp knife, cut a cross in the bottom of each chestnut and put them in a very large saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring the casserole to the boil and let the chestnuts simmer for 10 minutes.
Tip the water away and begin the tiresome process of peeling the chestnuts – namely, removing the thick brown outer shell and as much of the pale brown inner skin as possible. Two of you doing it is more fun than just one – stick on some good music, and have a glass of wine while you do it.
When you’ve finished, weigh the peeled chestnuts – this gives you the quantity of sugar you will need to use – see above. Put them back in the cleaned casserole and cover with warm water this time and bring to the boil, simmering at a steady bubble and stirring the chestnuts round from time to time so they cook evenly to the point that they can be easily crushed – depending on the quantity this can take up to 20 minutes.
Drain them. Then pass them through a sieve or better still, a mouli, and you will end up with a large bowl of floury puree. Keep this warm whilst you make the syrup.
Place the sugar in a large heavy-bottomed casserole or jam pan – add a couple of glasses of water to the sugar and heat and stir until it has turned syrupy – but don’t let it caramelise! Add the chestnut puree and a vanilla pod split open. The heat needs to be high enough to make the mixture bubble fairly energetically but not boil furiously.
Stir the puree – and then keep stirring. If the puree sticks it will burn and ruin the taste. Depending on the quantity (we ended up cooking 4 kilos at a time!) it will take anything from 20 to 45 minutes to thicken up. After the first 20 minutes remove the vanilla pod or the flavour will be too strong. The ‘jam’ is ready when you have a thick-ish shiny consistency that can be poured into pots.
Have your glass pots ready and waiting – sparkling clean and heated up on a metal tray in the oven to 110C. Pour the puree in leaving a good 1cm clear. The French fashion of sealing the pots seems to work well – screw tight the lid and turn the pots upside down until they are cool. This seems to sterilise and seal all in one!
We eat it on toast for breakfast, in pancakes (delicious), and added it to a recipe for chocolate fondant pots. We’ll be putting it in the chocolate log cake for Christmas and giving pots to good friends as presents. Note ‘good’ friends – it really did take too long to just give away to ‘all and sundry’ – but it does taste heavenly!
