Roasting chestnuts in the oven

[meriad]

how long for and at what temperature? I just put a few in at 200 degrees celsius for 20 mins and they're OK - quite tasty in fact - but I think a bit dry...

any ideas?

thanks

[cruiser2]

They should be roasted in a log fire. The heat in a modern electric or gas oven is too dry to give a good taste. Used to do them this way when I was young and we had an open fire. Used to have a plentiful supply of logs.

[meriad]

I sadly don't have a log fire - unless I light one outside and it's too wet and miserable for that

[Ally]

Get yourself over here Ria.

There are a few chestnut stalls dotted round the town.

People queue for ages whilst the chessies are being roasted.

After purchasing them it's off to sit on a bench to chat and eat ..it's a real event.

Big bag of deliciously hot chestnuts for a euro.

[tonicha]

Ditto

The man down the road does a huge bag of chestnuts for a euro. Love him - he's been doing it for years and lives off what he can get.

If I remember, we did them in a pan on the fire, for quite a whie, sorry I'm not much help. Until they popped, I think.

In fact, I've been not help at all, sorry.

[TheOstrich]

I don't know if it's because there has been a particularly poor harvest this year, but we've been unable to find any chestnuts on sale at all locally this year. We noticed in the autumn that there were very few horse chestnuts (conkers) on our neighbourhood trees either. So we're just down to Sainsburys tinned chestnuts for Xmas.

The slight danger of cooking real ones in an oven is that if you accidentally bake them for too long, they'll explode .... this happened to a friend many years back - we were sitting in his lounge waiting to feast when WW2 broke out in the kitchen ...

[Lozzles]

I think you have to slit them first don't you? Then they shouldn't explode...maybe

[Ally]

Our first year in Spain I got all Spanified and tried to roast my own.

Jacob still laughs at the mess that erupted everywhere..and I mean everywhere..when I opened the oven.

No one mentioned slitting them first.

But then this is the girl on using her brand new microwave many moons ago bunged an egg in whole expecting a nice boiled egg to magically appear.

The same girl who wrapped a potato in tin foil and bunged it in the microwave..the sparks and lights that ensued put Australia's new year firework display to shame.

The same girl..aged sweet 16..who cooked a chicken from frozen and made herself and the 3 friends she was cooking for very ill.

I'm delighted to say I rapidly improved after that!

[TheOstrich]

I think you have to slit them first don't you? Then they shouldn't explode...maybe

You're absolutely right, Loz, and I can't recall now if it was the failure to do that what created carnage in my friend's kitchen or not, but I do know that ever since, any chestnuts we've attempted to bake have not only been slit, they've been virtually halved!!

LOL @ Ally

[Weka]

Lol @ally too. That brought back splendid memories of Sydney's new year Eve's fireworks, and a friend who once defrosted her chicken on the clothes line out in the summer heat to defrost ready to cook dinner for her I laws that evening.

I've only had roasted chestnuts once and they were lovely!!! A friend at work just about fell over hen I said I had never had one, so she made me put on my coat and marched me out into the street where we walked to the nearest street vendor. Oh wow they were nice. Unfortunately I left soon after so didn't get a chance to have any more.