Edible chestnut - a lush spreading tree with fruits. Cooked and roasted chestnuts to taste resemble a sweet, very crumbly, dry, baked potato with a nutty flavor. They appear on the market as a signal - autumn has come. And yet - this is childhood! I can not imagine it without delicious edible chestnuts! Of course, in childhood you don’t think about the benefits or dangers of edible chestnut. Everything that is tasty is good! But with chestnut, this is true. In the chestnut season, we children could do without other food. The fruits of edible chestnut are very nutritious. Nobody limited us, they ate as much as they wanted, both raw, fried, and boiled.
About chestnuts
Chestnut trees attract eyes with their beauty, splendor of the crown, but in addition to external aesthetics, they are excellent healers. The fruits of the trees have long been successfully used for the manufacture of medicinal ointments, tinctures, but today we will focus on the collection of the horse chestnut familiar to everyone.
Chestnut tree, photo:
The fruits of the edible chestnut are very similar to the nucleoli of the inedible analog. It blooms in late May, and by the end of July, round green fruitlets appear abundantly covered with thorns.
By October, they begin to fall to the ground, a mature chestnut opens like a sea shell, where there are 1 or 3 nuts. Despite the name, similar appearance, these two trees belong not only to different varietal species, but even to different families. Ordinary chestnut belongs to the subfamily of horse chestnut, and edible to beech.
Chestnut fruit, photo:
How to distinguish edible and inedible chestnuts
The tree with edible fruits is higher than the usual horse variety, the foliage is also different - it grows not in fives, but one after another on a branch. It is impossible not to see the beauty of blooming horse chestnuts, but you can go past his edible brother and not notice.
The size of the nucleoli is also different - edible slightly smaller than horse. The green cover of horse chestnut has sparse spines, is easily removed, the edible is covered with thorns like a hedgehog, and the peel itself is quite difficult to peel off. You can eat both raw and roasted edible chestnuts, the benefits and harms of which will be described below.
Roasted chestnuts, photo:
There are several varieties of edible varieties of chestnut, from belonging to a particular variety, the height of the tree can be from 1 to 35 meters.
Edible chestnuts: benefits and harms
Chestnut kernels contain a powerful dose of vitamin C, B, E, the presence of protein (vegetable analogue), phosphorus, potassium, magnesium make it a kind of natural energy. Despite the fact that these fruits have a low calorie content (half as much as that of a walnut), the high content of starch, proteins, and fats do not allow them to be unconditionally ranked as diet foods.
Chestnuts also contain carbohydrates, tannins, and folic acid. The caloric content of the product is 180 kcal / 100 g, which allows (in reasonable quantities) to introduce it into the diet of people who monitor their weight.
Edible chestnut is contraindicated if a person is suspected of occult bleeding (gastric or pulmonary). With violations of the digestive tract, the presence of diseases of the circulatory system, manifestations of diabetes mellitus, one should not use chestnuts. Again, with a tendency to be overweight, you should extremely moderately regale these delicious fruits.
Chestnut kernels, photo:
Where grow
These trees love open sunny places. In the middle, southern strip of Russia, they feel great - bloom profusely, bear fruit. Chestnuts grow in many European countries, in the Caucasus, in Asia, North America. They are especially revered in France, where there is even a national holiday of chestnut.
How to Cook Edible Chestnuts
Edible chestnuts are very tasty! How to cook the fruits correctly - the answers to these questions are well known to European cooks and culinary specialists. Europeans use chestnut kernels everywhere to prepare various dishes, desserts. They even make flour, which gives the baking a special taste. Such flour in its composition is very similar to wheat flour, but it is more fat, rich in protein, has a yellowish tint. The dough mixed with this flour is more magnificent, rises faster, and due to the high sugar content, the pastries boast an appetizing golden crust.
To obtain flour, the kernels are actively dried (raw ones contain a lot of moisture), during which they become smaller. The degree of readiness can subsequently be estimated by lightly removing the brown crust.
As an independent delicacy, roasted chestnuts are incredibly tasty; during cooking salt or sugar is added to them. They can also be canned, boiled jam, combined with vegetables, seafood in salads. Chestnut soup is no less famous, after cooking you can make mashed potatoes, and the different versions of risotto with delicious nucleoli have long gained popularity in European restaurants.
Edible chestnut, photo:
To enjoy the taste of roasted chestnuts, they are first boiled and then fried in a pan without adding oil. So that during cooking the nucleoli do not “shoot”, their peel must first be incised crosswise. When the skin begins to crack, the treat is considered ready.
It is important that fruits immersed in water immediately fall to the bottom of the dishes, if they float, then this is an indicator of stale or the presence of any worms.
There are really many options for preparing interesting dishes, for example, you can consider a simple but very tasty spicy snack.
Stewed vegetables and roasted chestnuts, recipe:
- raw chestnuts - 450-500 g;
- tomatoes (preferably cherry) - 300 g;
- garlic - 2 prongs;
- fresh ginger root - a small piece, about 3 cm;
- olive oil - 5 tablespoons;
- pepper, salt - at your discretion.
We cut the chestnuts crosswise, cook for 15-20 minutes, peel, chop into medium-sized pieces. Heat the olive oil, fry the chestnuts for about 3 minutes. Cut the tomatoes into slices of a similar size, add to the nucleoli, simmer for 2 minutes, then put finely chopped garlic, ginger root. Add salt, pepper, simmer another 10 minutes. It turns out an islet dish with an unusual, but very harmonious flavor combination. It can be eaten as an independent dish or added to pasta, mashed potatoes, meat.
Growing edible chestnut
Edible chestnut - how to grow it? There are two options: planting with seedlings or nucleoli (seeds). Initially, you should know that these trees love isolation, no matter what plant you try to plant under them or near them - it will not grow. A chestnut tree develops a spreading crown, a strong root system of a superficial type, so it makes no sense to plant other cultures nearby. However, this factor can be successfully beaten by installing pretty benches under the tree, on which it will be nice to relax with the onset of summer heat.
For full development, each seedling should be allocated at least 3 or 4 meters of free space (around) when planting. Chestnut is thermophilic, feels great on leached chernozem, loam, tolerates gas contamination or landing in windy places.
For planting, it is best to choose annual or biennial seedlings, under which you should dig holes 0.5 meters deep. The width of the pit should be approximately 50 × 50 cm. The extracted soil should be mixed with sand and humus (2: 1: 1 ratio), add half a kilo of slaked lime to the resulting mixture. Also, it will not be superfluous to immediately add phosphorus-potash and nitrogen fertilizing. The bottom of the pit is traditionally covered by a layer of drainage (about 15 cm), crushed stone with sand is perfect for these purposes. Before placing the seedling there, the drainage layer should be slightly sprinkled with earth mixture, thoroughly water it.
Next, the seedling is covered with soil, gently compacted, a little more top-up - about 20 cm above ground level. This maneuver is done taking into account the further subsidence of the soil, when planting, make sure that the root neck of the future tree rises about 10 cm above the level of the mound. Provide the seedling with support - a peg that will help it withstand strong winds. At the end of the planting process, the tree is thoroughly watered with water.
Planting process, photo:
Edible chestnut - cultivation by seeds (nucleoli) is possible in autumn or spring. To do this, it is necessary to collect autumn fruits and subject them to stratification - staying in the cold. To achieve this goal, a box of sand is well suited, inside which chestnuts should be placed, and then put it in the refrigerator for 12-14 days. After the specified time, the nucleoli are buried in open ground.
In the chosen place, beds are burrowing, filled with water, the chestnuts themselves are deepened by 6-8 cm, the distance between the seeds should be about 15 cm. You do not need to cover the kernels with earth, it is enough to cover them with fallen leaves, so they will winter. With the onset of spring at this place you will be able to observe green shoots, among which you will have to choose the most powerful representatives.
Young seedlings, photo:
For spring planting, chestnuts are harvested in autumn, similarly sprinkled with sand, put the container where the air temperature is constantly present + 5-6 ° C. When spring comes and the time comes for planting chestnuts in open ground, 5 days before this event, place the nucleoli in warm water. After the specified time, plant the seeds in the desired place. In a year, this seedling will reach 20-30 cm in height, and by five years it will already be full three-meter trees.
Throughout the season, like any other tree, the chestnut should be watered, and the ground of the trunk circle should be pushed. With the onset of autumn, mulching will not hurt him, for this you can use sawdust or fallen leaves. To form a spreading crown in spring, you can do a haircut for the trees - cut one quarter of the length of the upper branches. It is enough to make top dressing once a year, with the onset of spring. Nitrate, urea, manure, nitrogen-potassium fertilizers are suitable for these purposes.
Edible chestnut is a long-liver. He can live more than one hundred years. A young tree is rapidly gaining growth, is well developed. Aging - can be maintained by trimming the minor branches by one third of their length. This is a tree of warm climate, however, in a way where the mercury column of a thermometer does not fall below -15 ° C in winter, it grows well and bears fruit. Acclimatized varieties of edible chestnuts can withstand temperatures up to -28 ° C.