Apple & Chestnut soup

Still enjoying the bounty of chestnuts that we gathered a couple of weeks back, I turn my attention to soup on cold days.

After countless hours spent burning my fingers in a hopeless attempt to shell whole chestnuts, I gave up and went for a recipe that would require them to be pureed, hence all I had to do was score the nuts, boil them for 10-15mins, cut them in half and scoop out the goodness inside. Brilliant. No more ruined fingernails, missing thumbprints and irritation as the insides crumble. Bliss.

I came across the recipe in a few different forms online- but this final version is a tweaked version all my own, utlising local and seasonal produce- the best kind! It's a beautiful dish for a cold night and looks lovely garnished with crumbled roasted chestnut pieces.

Apple & Chestnut Soup:

Ingredients:

• 2T butter
  
• 2 small turnips, peeled and diced
  
• 3 stalks celery, finely chopped
  
• 2 sundowner apples, cored and diced (I leave the skin on)
• 250grms of peeled chestnuts- roasted for 5mins in a dry frypan untill golden
  
• A sprig of fresh thyme (or a pinch of dried)
  
• 1L chicken stock (home made is best)

Method:

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, toss in diced turnip and chopped celery. Cook until browning, about 5mins. Add the thyme and stir until fragrant (1min).

Add the chopped apples and cook for a further 5mins, or just until apple is nice and soft. Add the roasted chestnuts (reserve some for garnish) and toss through. Then add 1L chicken stock bring to the boil. Reduce to a gentle simmer for 10mins. Check to make sure turnip is cooked soft, then remove from heat and puree till smooth. Serve hot and garnish with the reserved roast chestnut pieces and a sprig of thyme. Very satifying when you have had enough of trying to shell whole roasted chestnuts.

*Note: when you puree the hot liquid, make sure that there is a place for the steam to escape to avoid buildups of steam or explosions of hot liquid- ouch. 

Chestnut, Thyme & Apple ravioli

When you have access to fresh, seasonal produce- sometime you just gotta drown yourself in it, and with over 600 beautiful and lovingly gathered chestnuts adorning my house in little bowls and mountains, it was time to start putting them to good use.

Inspired by a couple of recipes floating around and a hands on cooking dinner at a friends place earlier in the week, I came up with this combination of seasonal delights and I have never been so satisfied with a gourmet mid-week meal. Once the chestnuts are shelled (and let's admit it, that part can be tricky), the rest is pretty simple. Thankfully, as the chestnuts get crumbled up, you can be pretty blase with the peeling. I just spilt the shells and boiled mine for 15mins, then sliced them in half and crumbled the meat into a bowl. Easy-peasy. 

Chestnut, Thyme & Apple filled Ravioli: 

makes about 20 depending on size. Serves 2 for a main, or 4 for a generous entree.

Ingredients:

• 250 grams of freshly shelled chestnut meat (about 500g raw nuts), crumbled
• 1 apple, skin on (I used red sundowner), finely chopped 
  
• 1 brown onion, minced
  
• 3T olive oil
  
• 2T currants
• 1t dried thyme
  
• 1/4 cup water
  
• 2T butter
  
• 20 ravioli wrappers- we made our own from our basic pasta recipe (2 eggs to 200g flour). 
  
• Half a lemon for finishing

Method:

If you're making your own ravioli wrappers, do this first and then cover them with a damp cloth to stop them drying out, but have them ready to go.

Heat the oil in a frypan and fry onions until golden and translucent. Add the thyme and 1/2 the chopped apple, fry for one minute to infuse flavour. Add chestnut meat and currants and toss through. Then add water and cook for 15mins until the water has reduced and the filling thickens a little. Make sure it's not too wet. 

Have a small cup of tepid water ready by your work space and a floured surface ready to rest the ravioli on once filled- this will stop them sticking to the bench.

Take a ravioli wrapper in your hand and put a teaspoon of filling in it (do not overfill or they will not seal properly and will explode when cooking). Wet one finger with a little water and run it along one edge of the ravioli wrapper. Fold wrapper in half over the filling and press the wet edge to the dry edge to seal.

Make sure you ease/squeeze out air bubbles (again, they will cause ravioli to explode when cooking). You can leave the ravioli shapes like this in a crescent, or take the two corners and bring them together and seal with water to create a little 'crown shape'. Set the finished ravioli to one side on the floured bench. Repeat the process until you run out of wrappers or filling.

Once the ravioli are ready, boil a pot of water with a little salt in it. 

When boiling, place the ravioli gently in and cook until pasta is aldente. It varies depending on your pasta, but about 5mins- don't overdo it, or they may explode, the less time bobbing round in the water the better. Drain ravioli.

 Heat butter in a frypan, add the remaining apple and and fry till golden, then toss through the cooked ravioli to coat in apple and butter. Serve in big white dishes with the pan juice drizzled over and a healthy squeeze of lemon juice to cut the oil.

Then relax with your loved ones and a glass of red wine- even better if it's in front of an open fire in Autumn and there are more chestnuts to roast for fun/dessert.

Gone nutty- for Chestnut season

Autumn is such a beautiful and abundant time of year. It brings out the little squirrel in me and all I want to do is forage for food, stockpile it for the bitter days to come and ferret around in the leaf detritus that scatters itself all around us. Fortunately, there are some activities that fulfill all these particular needs, and so on Saturday we went chestnutting.

Now for the un-initiated (of which I was one), chestnutting does not involve tree climbing and branch shaking. It's a far more peaceful pass-time than that. 

Ruefleur Chestnut farm is located in the Melbourne Dandenongs and makes a beautiful setting for the discovery of fresh chestnuts. All you need are heavy duty rubber gloves (believe me, you need them), a bag for your treasured finds and a stick to poke amongst the leaves with.

The chestnut 'burrs' (spikey casings) fall from the trees in autumn, hit the ground and spill their precious contents amongst the falling leaves.

It's very pretty, and it's a gold-mine of nutty joy. The majority of the chestnuts grown in Australia are called the 'domestic' variety and have a couple of nuts in each burr. There are others called Marrons, which have a single nut in each burr, but these are not so common in the Antipodes, even though they are the nuts traditionally used for the coveted (and expensive) Marrons Glace. 

At the end of an hour or so with our focus on the ground, we had 8kgs of chestnuts and a whole lot of shelling to do... worth it for the multitude of Autumn recipes I have planned. Washed, air dried and stored, all we await now is the first fire of the season for some roasting fun.  Stay tuned. And in the meantime...

Sweet Chestnut Puree:

Ingredients: 

• 1kg fresh chestnuts (to yield 500g chestnut meat)
  
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 2 cups water
  
• 1/2 a vanilla pod, seeds only  
  

Method:

Split the chestnut shells, then boil the nuts for 15mins. While still hot, cut nuts in half and crumble meat into a bowl. In a heavy based saucepan bring the water to the boil, add sugar and stir to dissolve, then add chestnut meat. Bring back to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30mins or until the water has reduced. Add vanilla seeds. Strain the nut meat, reserving the sugar syrup. Place nutmeat in a blender and blend to a paste, adding reserved sugar syrup to loosen if necessary until you have the desired puree consistency.

Serve with ice-cream, or use in cakes. Or, fill puff pastry circles with the puree and cook till golden. Tasty and so versatile!