What are chestnuts
Chestnuts are the fruit of the chestnut (Castanea sativa = Castanea vulgaris = Castanea vesca), an arboreal plant grown in the temperate regions of Europe, Asia and West Africa.
A healthy and nutritious fruit, chestnuts were in the past an essential food of the people, so much so that they earned the nickname "bread of the poor".
Fresh, dried or ground into flour, chestnuts are suitable for endless culinary preparations.
Chestnuts as a food
Thanks to their excellent content in complex carbohydrates, chestnuts are a real staple food, able to replace the most precious cereals.
This food was consumed and is still consumed mainly roasted (roasted chestnuts), candied and boiled (ballotta). The homonymous flour is also obtained from chestnuts, the basic ingredient of many sweets (castagnaccio), polenta and the so-called "tree bread", typical of some areas of France.
From a nutritional point of view, the chestnut is a high quality food thanks, above all, to the high percentage of starches combined with a fair content of fats, proteins, mineral salts (especially potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium, calcium, iron ) and vitamins (C, B1, B2 and PP). These characteristics, combined with excellent digestibility, make chestnuts an ideal food also for athletes.
During cooking, most of the starch is reduced to simple sugars, giving the chestnuts their typical sweet taste and making them contraindicated for those suffering from diabetes.
Further uses
Thanks to their high nutritional value, in the popular pharmacopoeia they are indicated in case of avitaminosis, anemia and debilitation. The infusion and decoction, rich in tannins, are useful in case of bronchitis and diarrhea. Thanks to their antiseptic action, gargling with the infusion of leaves are an excellent remedy against inflammation of the throat and mouth.
The boiling water of chestnuts is an excellent fertilizer for plants.
Tips for buying
Upon purchase, the peel must be intact and shiny, without cracks. To the touch a fresh chestnut appears firm and its shell does not yield if pressed with the fingers.
Similar to chestnuts, but more valuable, chestnuts boast larger dimensions and an ovoid shape that is more rounded on the sides, tending to heart-shaped; the skin, light brown in color with well marked dark veins, is thinner and contains a sweet ivory-white seed. Chestnuts are smaller in size, with a rounded, flat or hemispherical shape depending on the position taken inside the thorny inflorescence that contains them (hedgehog). If this contains a "single chestnut, we are talking about chestnuts, when there are three we are talking about chestnuts. The hedgehog, which opens in autumn when it is ripe, protects the fruit from insects and prevents residues from chemical treatments. penetrate inside.
The chestnuts are covered with an adherent skin that covers them by penetrating the pulp. This film, which remains on the outside in browns and is easy to remove, must be removed before consumption.The removal of the peel is more difficult: to facilitate this operation, the chestnuts must pass from a refrigerated environment to the boiling one of cooking, and then be cooled again with cold water once the preparation is completed. coating.
The chestnuts of Mount Amiata (province of Grosseto and Siena), of Montella (Avellino) and the chestnuts of Castel del Rio (Bologna) and Mugello (Florence), have recently obtained the IGP certification.
Castagnaccio - How to prepare it at home
Our PersonalCooker Alice explains on MypersonaltrainerTv how to prepare the castagnaccio illustrating in detail every single step.
Castagnaccio
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And for those with a sweet tooth, here is the link for the video recipe of the chocolate chestnut pralines.
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