“Wait, wait!” a man called out as he briskly walked down the hill. I stood waiting at the Land Cruiser, where he handed me a bag of chestnuts.
What a treat! I had a choice to make: eat them raw or cook the chestnuts.
Harvesting Chestnuts
We chatted hand-and-feet language for a bit and were grateful for the gift. We had run and hiked some of the nearby trails where other hikers had been quicker than we in collecting all chestnuts and we had missed out.
We remember chestnuts only too well from our Baekdu-daegan hike. We didn’t know you could eat them until a Korean pointed it out to us. During our hike we spent hours harvesting, cleaning and devouring them. It was such a treat – and a super nutritious one at that!
Only later we learned that cooking chestnuts in the pressure cooker worked great, too.
How?
Let me tell you!
Read More: Why Hike the Baekdu-daegan Trail in South Korea
Books on Using a Pressure Cooker
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Products from Amazon
Cooking Chestnuts in the Pressure Cooker
Cleaning raw chestnuts is a lot of work that requires patience as well as care to peel them with a sharp knife without cutting yourself.
“There must be another way,” Coen said.
I agreed – cleaning this number of chestnuts would take two days. I turned to our friend called Google.
Google had answers and we learned that cooking chestnuts indeed facilitates peeling them. However, later on we experimented a bit more and found an even better method of steaming, which requires less water and less cooking time. How awesome is that?!
Thank you, pressure cooker, once more!
Read More: Unleash the Dragon – Why Bring a Pressure Cooker on your Overland Trip
Two Options to Facilitate Peeling Chestnuts
1. Cooking chestnuts
- Wash the chestnuts.
- Partly cut them with a sharp knife (otherwise they will explode).
- Put them under water in the pressure cooker.
- Close the lid, bring the pan to a boil and boil them for 8 minutes.
- Turn off the heat, let it sit for another 5 minutes.
- Take off the pressure and fish out the chestnuts.
- Peel them with ease.
2. Steaming chestnuts
- Wash the chestnuts.
- Fill the pressure cooker with 1 centimeter of water and lay the grid on the bottom.
- Put in the chestnuts.
- Close the lid, bring the pressure cooker to its boiling point and steam them for 5 minutes.
- Turn off the heat, let it sit for another 10 minutes.
- Take off the pressure and fish out the chestnuts.
- Peel them with ease.
We then figured out that you don’t even need to peel them.
Tip of the day: Spoon the chestnuts out, like you would do with a boiled egg!
Overland Cooking Equipment
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Products from Amazon
Read More: Pressure Cooker 101
Pressure-cooker Recipes
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Oh, wow, not only in South Korea but also in Switzerland Chestnuts (Maroni we call them) are growing. What a surprise. In Italy and Switzerland it was in earlier times the “bread of the poor people”. In winter Maroni are sold everywhere. Since we moved back to Switzerland, we have a huge Chestnuttree in our backyard. So I prepare Maroni / Chestnuts like this:
Soak them 1 hour in cold water – cut the skin horizontally on the round bellyside with a sharp knife – put them into the oven, middle temperatur (Omnia as well / Colemann oven) with a bit water – after 20 minutes put a wet towel over the Maroni and bake for another 15-20 minutes. Try one, if it is tender it’s ok, otherwise let them bake for another moment. Make sure that the towel stays always very wet.
Happy meal!!
Hi Iris, so good to hear from you.Thanks to sharing this!
i just cleaned them and x cut then oven @ cooked” about 40 min a little less,
then peeled and roasted in 400 oven to “ toasted”
removed the membrane by rilling in my cupped hands
then wait till hardened and put thru a burr mill for wonderful flour!! Its a “ trade item” when things go tough out there!!!
It will do well in vacuum pack and freezer for long storage
I put super dry flour into Qt size Ball Jars for storage !
You make a 2:1 flour and chestnut flour for cakes cookies etc
We have a 90 year old twin chestnut tree my husbands father planted in the back yard! Its a super shade tree
and leaves are the last to drop! Need gloves to protect hands from the barbers hull
clean up!!
Thanks for the share! I love chestnut tree, they are so magnificent and in a way demand respect.