Peel chestnuts: 5 tips & tricks

Peeling chestnuts made easy: With these simple tricks, you can easily remove the skin from chestnuts. Our expert tips from Plantura.

Hot chestnuts are a real treat in winter. In contrast to horse chestnuts, the delicious sweet chestnuts are edible, but unfortunately their preparation is not very easy: the chestnuts often cannot be peeled. Both the woody outer shell and the inner skin of the chestnuts stubbornly cling to the core and sometimes cause despair. Fortunately, there are a few tricks that help those with a sweet tooth peel the chestnuts better. In this article, we will tell you which tricks make the arduous task of peeling chestnuts easier.

Tip 1: The right preparation simplifies the peeling of chestnuts

Even if raw chestnuts are particularly tasty and healthy with their sweet taste and numerous vitamins, they are only recommended for patient people. In fact, shelling the raw nuts is the hardest part. The skin comes off more easily if you boil the chestnuts and then peel them or roast them in the oven beforehand. Roasting in the oven in particular is often recommended, as this method also removes the fine inner skin more easily. If you also put a bowl of water in the oven, this not only prevents the chestnuts from drying out, but also ensures that the skin becomes a little softer. This will make it much easier to peel the chestnuts.

Tip 2: Carve the chestnuts before preparing them

Whether in the oven or in a saucepan - before the chestnuts are prepared, they should be scored crosswise with a knife. This not only reduces the cooking time of the chestnuts, but also makes the chestnuts easier to peel. You can soak the chestnuts in water for one to two hours to make it easier to cut through the skin with a knife. This makes the peel more flexible and you have less trouble carving the fruit. After preparation, the incision is a perfect starting point to start peeling the chestnuts.

Tip 3: Prepare chestnuts in the microwave

If you want to prepare and peel your chestnuts as quickly as possible, you can use a simple trick: in the In the microwave, the chestnuts are not only cooked in no time at all, but the skin should also come off particularly well permit. To do this, the carved chestnuts are placed in a microwave-safe bowl and covered with a little water. Cover the chestnuts and leave them in the microwave for about a minute. Then the bowl is shaken once and placed in the microwave again for a minute. The steam loosens the chestnut skin - the chestnut peels much more easily after cooking in the microwave.

Tip 4: Peel chestnuts while hot

When the chestnuts come fresh out of the pot or oven, they are boiling hot. Many people therefore let them cool down before starting to peel the chestnuts - a mistake: Chestnuts peel more easily when they are still hot. As soon as the chestnuts have cooled down, the inner skin in particular can hardly be detached. In order not to burn your fingers when peeling the chestnuts, you should only touch the hot chestnuts with kitchen gloves or a tea towel. The peel is now removed with a sharp knife. So that the remaining chestnuts do not cool down in the meantime, it is worth only adding small amounts at a time Take the peel out of the pot or oven and heat up the rest with the remaining residual heat keep.

Tip 5: Remove the inner skin with a tea towel

Not only the hard shell but also the furry inner skin of the chestnuts has to be removed before the delicacy can be eaten. However, even this does not give up the field without a fight – it is often difficult to peel from the chestnut. You can easily and efficiently solve this problem by peeling the chestnuts: After the chestnuts have been freed from the rigid shell, rub them off in a clean tea towel. This loosens the inner skin particularly well and saves you the annoying detail work with the knife. A little tip: Here, too, the skin comes off best when the chestnut is still as hot as possible.

Do you already know him? Difference between edible and horse chestnuts? You can read more about it in our article.

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