Autumn Candy and Detail Design

[fujita yuji]

Haven't been out for some months as I've got a kid at the end of July.

Here I'd like to share a recipe of autumn candy made by chestnut.
It's called 栗の渋皮煮 in Japanese. It's nothing more than rather primitive candy
but can serve as a food storage method as well.
I make them at this time of year and eat them little by little, spending a whole year.
A very good menu with either coffee or tea, sometimes with whiskey :thumbup:

First, peel off outer most shell with your favorite blade.
As it is quite smooth and hard, sharper edge is better without no doubt,
although I never worry about it as far as WSS forum is concerned.
You have to be **very careful** not to break inner brown peel.
If you break the inner peel, even a slightest scratch, then the chestnut will break
in the following steps and it will never be a nice candy.

peeling done. this took about 2 hours. maybe this is the most demanding step.

You may put your finger at the bottom of the blade to process chestnuts.
This is a very useful position with great control in many kinds of choir.
As you may see, the blade side face of the bolster is inclined
so as to get into this position easily, as well as the bottom of the blade can
be cleaned with ease. Also please note the boundary of the blade bevel and
the ricasso is shaped to smooth surface to make cleaning easy and avoid stress.
To be added, you may see the soldering of bolster is very poorly done

Then put them into Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) solution for a night.
the solution density maybe 10g/1000ml or so.

Boil it with baking soda solution with small fire for about half an hour.
The solution gets dark brown with excess tannin.
After boiling, remove fiber and threads from the surface of chestnuts.
Then change water (this time, without baking soda) and boil it another half an hour.
Check if annoying fiber or thread remains on the chestnuts.

They should look like this.

After cleaning, dump water and measure the weight of chestnuts.
Add sugar of 70% weight of the chestnuts, with water comes somewhat above
the height of chestnuts.
Put drop-lid into the pot. (about drop-lid please look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otoshi_buta)
Boil it until the liquid obtains some viscosity and liquid level goes well beneath the
top of chestnuts.

Almost done. Put them into sterilized bottles and store them at cool dark place.

Thanks you for looking and reading.

 

[Bushman5]

very cool! what do they taste like?

(and for us Westerners, "Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate" is called sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)

 

[fujita yuji]

Thanks, Bushman5.
They taste quite good I think but hard to describe.
Taste better with time goes as seen (or tasted ?) in many other stored foods.

Sorry for funny name and thank you very much for your correction.
Yes, its sodium bicarbonate.

 

[baldtaco-II]

Otoshi buta - Cool, I learn.

 

[North]

They sound very good!

Bill

 

[Kismet]

Thank you very much.

Wonderful for you to tell me about them.

I will try to re-create your recipe.

I appreciate the knowledge.

 

[John G]

Thanks for the recepie! Also, it's nice to see your knives again.

 

[Mistwalker]

This is really cool, I like to see simple recipes that are easily done. I'll have to give this a try. I'll have to buy the chestnuts though. I don't ever see them this far south.

very cool! what do they taste like?

(and for us Westerners, "Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate" is called sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)

Thank you, I thought I was going to have to google it

 

[MacHete]

I wonder if the same method could be used with hickory nuts? American Chestnut is pretty hard to come by these days, although there is one thriving specimen near my MIL's house that I hope will proliferate. :thumbup:

 

[Liam Ryan]

I wonder what they taste like? I am guessing a drop in lid is a double boiler?

 

[fujita yuji]

Thank all of you for favourable responses.
John G, my blades are very much in charge every day.

Chestnuts are quite popular and well abundant here in Japan.
These chestnuts in the OP were not bought, my parents living in my home town
(located far from large cities) found them in the field and sent them to me.
That is why I make these candies every year.

I corrected funny name of baking soda in the OP. Thanks Bushman5 and sorry mistwalker.

 

[baldtaco-II]

I am guessing a drop in lid is a double boiler?

Nah, a bain-marie is for a gentle process. Think of this more like a float that stops the bubbles smashing the food up when you cook more aggressively - boil / simmer.

 

[fujita yuji]

Sorry for you all that I cannot let you know how this taste like.
This is the limit of the Internet as all I can send is broken English and few pics.
Just joking. I'll try.
For those who knows taste and flavor of chestnuts, they are basically just a sweet boiled chestnuts.
The difference is, the inner peel of chestnuts which gives a unique flavor and character to this food.
Too much bitter taste and excess tannin exist in the inner peel, which is reduced by baking soda
and pre-boiling/cleaning process.

Nah, a bain-marie is for a gentle process. Think of this more like a float that stops the bubbles smashing the food up when you cook more aggressively - boil / simmer.

You maybe right, baldtaco-II.
The drop lid prevents collapse of delicate food and let them be boiled evenly, both
for the heat and the taste.

 

[Mistwalker]

I corrected funny name of baking soda in the OP. Thanks Bushman5 and sorry mistwalker.

No worries Fujita, I google a lot of stuff anyway

 

[kgd]

Very nice, this makes me crave chestnuts - which immediately lends itself to the 'open fire' part of a popular christmas song.

Thanks for sharing your food preservation methods. Last weekend my wife and I made 30 jars of applesauce. The apples were sweeter than I thought and with the brown sugar I added it almost tastes like apple pie filling.

 

[fujita yuji]

I forgot one important thing to say in the opening post.
Anybody remember my thread of survival computation I posted some month ago?
I calculated the amount of sugar with the sliderule which is the white thing in the last picture.

Thanks Ken.
30 jars !! That's astonishing..
Now your turn to post your apples