<p>And if you know what it is, tell me, please!!!</p>
<p>What I’ve done for decades is cut an X in the chestnut shell with the tip of a knife, then boil the chestnuts for a couple of minutes. After that, I scoop them out of the water one by one and shell them. They are devilishly hard to peel, and I mutter dire threats and curse words under my breath (or sometimes at the top of my lungs, depending on whether anyone else is home) the entire hour or two or three it takes to shell the things. (How long it takes depends on how much stuffing I’m making, of course.)</p>
<p>Is there an easier way? Something I’ve been missing all these years that makes the shells just pop right off? </p>
<p>I go through this agony because chestnuts are so incredibly delicious, and I am always glad the day after I’ve shelled them, when I am eating them, that I went through the pain and sustained the cuts and bruises that comes with shelling them.</p>
<p>Chestnuts are as American as… well, as America. They used to be plentiful on this continent, but a blight wiped out the American Chestnut tree. My grandmother made chestnut stuffing; chestnuts were plentiful when she was growing up. I continue the tradition, though today, the chestnuts come from somewhere else in the world. The ones I’m using this year are from Italy, but China is a common source of chestnuts, too. I’ve purchased shelled chestnuts in the past – Trader Joe’s sells them – but they are not quite as good as freshly-shelled chestnuts.</p>
<p>So I put up with shelling them, but I surely would be thankful for an easier way to do so!!</p>
<p>Microwave them. Be sure to puncture the shell to let the steam escape. Also put a them in a microwaveable container with a lid to contain the explosion. </p>
<p>Peel the shell then take a propane torch to them to crisp the skin. Rub off skin.</p>
<p>Dremel tool.
Rock tumbler with crushed rock, 1/2" +, then progressively to 00 grit.</p>
<p>I’m done with the pound of chestnuts I got tonight (the last pound in the store!), and as I shelled and skinned them, remembered the trick: they have to be hot. As in, boiling hot. Right out of the hot water. The shells come off more easily than the skins do. Peeling off the skins is like unwrapping a brain; honestly, that’s what it looks like! No cuts tonight, but both thumbs could use some aloe.</p>
<p>LongPrime, I have microwaved them in the past after boiling them if the nuts had cooled off. But the blowtorch is reserved for the creme caramel. :D</p>
<p>I’ll have to remember next time to do these assembly-line style: put three chestnuts in boiling water, boil them for a minute or two, and take them out to peel while simultaneously adding three more chestnuts to the water; continue until done. That should provide maximum heat needed for peeling but not so much heat that the nutmeats start to breakdown.</p>
<p>Hunt, you don’t like chestnuts?!?!</p>
<p>momof3sons, I remember the smell of roasting chestnuts from NYC street corners, and didn’t like it at all! I’ve never roasted chestnuts at home. Would love to try it over an open fire, though, on a Christmas Eve!</p>
<p>BunsenBurner, my husband will shell chestnuts with me, but he hates it as much as I do and would be perfectly happy with cornbread stuffing or some such, so I chase him off. I’m the one who insists on chestnut stuffing, so I feel that I should pay the price! (Besides… he does most of the cooking…)</p>
<p>owlice, I buy frozen roasted chestnuts (in shells) at Trader Joe’s when they have them for sale, store them in the freezer and just pop them in a microwave or a pre-heated oven, and they make a great snack for my guests while I go about my business of dinner making. They are so easy to shell! I’d go nuts if I had to deal with the raw ones.</p>
<p>removing the pedicarp (thin covering of the chestnut meat) that is difficult. </p>
<p>At one time in our lives, when the kid was small, we found a person who had 20 mature chestnut trees. We picked a bundle and gave away a bundle. We candied and bottled. Maybe a bottle somewhere.</p>