Oven Baked Chestnuts
There are a couple of things I like cold winter days for, and one of them is chestnut. There is a definite charm buying a bag of chestnuts – freshly roasted in a tub of sizzling coal pebbles from a street vendor, in his funny hat and long cloak – however, doesn’t matter how delicately you try to peel off the skin, you will always end up with cracked and black fingers. So for those of you annoyed by these things (or the price, maybe?) why not try baking chestnuts at home?! There is no difference in the taste, it is easy, fast and less messy that the street version. Let’s see how it is done 🙂
Oven Baked Chestnuts
1. Grab a bag of chestnut from a grocery store / fruit stall. I got a half kg bag this time, pretty big pieces (easier to work with bigger ones):
2. Cut a ‘+’ incision on the rounded side of each chestnut:
3. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/390°F, place the chestnuts flat side down on a baking tray:
4. Bake the chestnuts until the skin opens up and you can see the fruit turning golden inside:
5. Let the chestnuts cool a bit and peel off the skins, joyfully eat the ones that have a texture similar to that of baked potato, discard the pieces that you feel are bad (too dark, too soft etc).
While He Was Out 
My goodness, I’ll have to look for these because my husband talks about having them every Christmas & I’ve never made them. I think when he was in Europe he’d buy them on the street but I’ve never seen that here.
Give it a try then, he will be grateful!! 😉