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It's chestnut season, which gives me the chance to share this delicious marronnière as my Take One Dish offering this month. This beautiful soft-base porcelain chestnut basket with white, and turquoise-blue enamelling and gilding was made in the Sèvres factory in 1759-60. It bears a painter's mark of a candlestick with smoking candle, presumed to be that of an unidentified ground-colour painter. By the time this was made, Sèvres was under the patronage of Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour and the factory had moved from Vincennes to Sèvres. This particular piece is in the care of The Wallace Collection in London which has the finest museum collection of Sèvres porcelain in the world.
Sugared chestnuts, or Marrons Glacés, were a particular delicacy in the 1700s and marronnières were produced for serving them elegantly. Plainer chestnut bowls were produced by Sèvres but intricate baskets, such as this, cost nearly twice as much. It would have had to be fired three times, once for the body and ground colour, again for the enamel colours and finally for the gilding. Great skill would have been required to prevent sagging and separation of the latticework. Marrons Glacés are at their best after being freshly submerged in warm syrup. The basket's piercings allow for moisture and excess syrup to escape so that the marrons are served at their best.
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| Marrons Glacés |
There are recipes out there for Marrons Glacés. It's tempting to have a go, given how expensive they are to buy, but I've seen it done by professionals and believe me it's an art. Chestnuts are unlike other common nuts in that they store their energy for future seedlings in the form of starch rather than oil so they need to be cooked. They have a satisfyingly mealy texture and are not only suitable for sweet but also for savoury use. Newly gathered, keeping them at room temperature for a few days allows some starch to be converted to sugar which improves the flavour. If you want to keep them for longer you need to skin and preserve them by drying, freezing or vacuum-packing. Once skinned, they can be added to stuffings, soups and casseroles. A salad of radicchio, bacon and fried chestnuts with a warm mustardy dressing makes a wonderful autumn dish. Lightly salted chestnuts are delicious served with an aperitif. Pureed chestnuts are the basis for a number of rich desserts. Dried and ground to a fine powder, they produce a flour that is particularly appreciated in northern Italy and Tuscany for making fritters, breads, cakes and even pasta - although it does have to be mixed with a flour containing gluten to produce Italy's favourite staple food.
Peeling chestnuts hot from the fire is hard to beat. Slashed with a sharp knife then piled into an old chestnut roaster or iron pot, if you're lucky enough to have either, and pushed deep into hot coals, they emerge smoky, sweet and yielding. Deeply knicked, spread on a baking tray and sprinkled with water they can be baked in a medium oven for 15-20 minutes or the pierced nuts can be tossed in a dry frying pan for 10 minutes. Alternatively, after cutting into the thick skin you can drop them in a pan of boiling water for 5 minutes before peeling. Ah, the peeling! The nuts need to be skinned hot if you're to properly remove the thin fuzzy skin beneath the hard outer. A tea towel will protect your hands and you can return nuts to the heat if they cool too much for skinning. Ready-skinned and vacuum-packed French chestnuts are a fallback option, and a good one if you need a lot, although not quite as tasty and evocative of cool, misty autumn days.
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| Freshly gathered chestnuts |
This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly:
Thomas Hardy
From subsistence food to luxury treat, the chestnut retains its appeal. As for those Marrons Glacés, they are so rich even I can only manage one at a sitting so I'm happy to leave their making to an expert. I keep coming back to the memory of still-warm glacé chestnuts at a demonstration in London by Romanengo fu Stefano, the outstanding confectioner of Genoa, Italy who've been making them since 1780.
There are plenty of easier uses for chestnuts. Here is a savoury recipe adapted from Claudia Roden's The Food Spain. It's peasant food which originally would have been made with dried chestnuts and beans re-hydrated when a hearty, warming dish was needed. Adding some sliced cooking chorizo at the same time as the beans turns this from a thick soup to a more substantial main dish.
Haricot Beans with Chestnuts
(judias blancas con castañas)
2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium onion, peeled and roughly chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
- 250g peeled chestnuts
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 cloves
- Salt & pepper
- 700g pre-cooked haricot or butter beans (drained weight)
- A little extra virgin olive oil
Fry the onion in the oil over a low heat, stirring often, until soft. Add the garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add the chestnuts and barely cover with water. Add the cinnamon stick and cloves and season with salt and pepper. Bring the pot to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Stir in the beans and cook for a further 10 minutes. Serve warm with a dash of extra virgin olive oil.
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