Roasted Chestnuts

With Felicia Mohan

Roasting chestnuts are not done by the open fire all of the time but they can be made in the oven. Chestnuts, called castagne in Italian, have been around for many, many centuries. They are mentioned by such noted ancient authors such as Pliny and even Homer. They were and are an important part of the Mediterranean food culture because they can be grown on hillsides and can be kept through the winter.

You have to be careful that you buy and eat edible chestnuts instead of horse chestnuts. They may look very similar out of their shell but they are easy to distinguish in their casings. The horse chestnut, which is what you will find around where you live, is grown in a shell that is like a smooth ball with short bumpy spikes. The edible chestnut has a porcupine looking shell that protrudes out in all directions. You will know that the chestnut is mature when the case turns from green to a brownish coloring.

The demise of the edible chestnut tree in North America came about from the accidental introduction of an Asian bark fungus in the very early 1800’s. Chestnut trees were used as a lumber source and an estimated three billion were destroyed.

Ingredients

4 to 6 cups chestnuts
¼ cup white wine
½ teaspoon kosher salt

2 large sheets of Parchment paper
1 large cookie sheet

Instructions

Pre- heat oven 450 degrees F.

1. Place chestnuts in a large colander and rinse chestnuts under cold water, to remove any debris. Place chestnut flat side down on a cutting board.
2. Using a very sharp knife (I like to use my paring knife), carefully make an “x” slit on the rounded side of the chestnut.
3. Lay Parchment paper on a flat surface, overlapping the sheets in a cross pattern. Place prepared chestnuts in the middle of paper cross.
4. Sprinkle white wine over the chestnuts & dust with salt.
5. Fold opposite edges of paper towards each other, rolling down and creasing edges of paper to create an air tight package.
6. Place package onto cookie sheet. Put into oven and bake 20 to 25 minutes or until slits on chestnuts begin to lift and peel backwards.
7. Remove chestnuts and carefully unwrap the paper package. Note: Be mindful of the hot steam .

You will want to serve your chestnuts to keep them warm. I place a cotton decorative towel into a serving bowl, put the chestnuts in and fold towel edges inward keeping the heat and steam close to the chestnut until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

Recipe courtesy of Felicia (Ciaramitaro) Mohan, 2011.

From "Food For Thought" Column by Heather Atwood: Felicia Mohan lives in a sparkling new house in Gloucester, and has twin 11-year-olds: Amanda, playing 12-year-old tennis and ranked No. 32 in New England, and B.J., a catcher for AAU Baseball who will play in the Gloucester All-Star 11-year-old team. Felicia looks like a beautiful, modern mother, struggling to get her kids where they need to go while keeping up with life at home, but Felicia is also adamant about preserving her family's Sicilian heritage, particularly the dishes her grandmother, another Felicia, prepared. Felicia Mohan's grandfathers were named Joseph Salvatore Ciaramitaro — both of them, spelled the exact same way. One Joseph fished first from his boat The Benjamin and Josephine, which was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Maine, and then he fished from his Benjamin C, named after his father-in-law, Benjamin Cucuru. Later he founded Capt'n Joe's Lobster Co. on the wharf in Gloucester, now run by Felicia's brother, Joey, and cousin Frankie. Felicia's other grandfather owned Pat's Center Grocery, that not only sold groceries but provided all the fishing boats with food for their long trips, delivering the "speza," as the supplies were called, to each boat before it left port.
Grandpa with the wharf was married to Felicia's namesake. Holidays at this Felicia's house began a full week ahead as all the women in the family gathered at her home, which had two full kitchens, to cook together. When school let out at 3, the children went straight to Grandma's house that week because that's where their mothers were cooking. Not only were these women making all the traditional Italian holiday foods, from appetizers such as octopus salad, a standard which the men insisted upon at every holiday, to a wealth of Italian cookies, homemade bread, and New World foods such as pies, but the women were also making ordinary dinners those weeknights for all their husbands and children. Felicia and Joseph have passed away. Now, holiday meals are at young Felicia's, where 35 to 40 people come to celebrate. Felicia, like her grandmother, still sets a formal table with china and linen; her custom-built table seats 25, with two more tables in the great room for overflow, replacing her grandmother's enormous table that started in the kitchen, extended through the dining room, the hallway and ended at the living room. In her large, creamy, new kitchen, Felicia still makes dishes like braciole, spiedini, and olive gonzathe. She makes videos for this newspaper showing how to prepare her grandmother's special bread crumbs, "mudiga," with chicken and steak. This past December, Felicia gathered all the cousins together to make their great-grandmother's Santa Lucia dessert, "cuccia," a vanilla pudding made with wheatberries which the playful great-grandmother had always encouraged the children to eat in a race. Contact Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. Her blog is at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought