The encyclopædia of practical cookery

(2) Roast the Chestnuts, and when they are done peel oft' both the skins. Put 4oz. of crushed loaf sugar into a saucepan with only as much water as it will absorb, put in the Chestnuts, and toss them about over a slow fire. When they are well coated with the syrup, turn them on to a dish, and dust them over with caster sugar. Serve the compote when cold. (3) Take about a hundred Chestnuts, remove their outer skins, and put them into a saucepan with about 3 teacupfuls of bran, a lemon cut into pieces, and some water. Place the saucepan on the fire, and let the Chestnuts cook until they are soft enough for a pin to go into them easily ; then rub For details respecting Culinary Processes, Utensils, Chestnuts — continued. off the second skin, and throw them into cold water with the juice of a lemon in it. Clarify and boil gently 1Mb. of sugar to small thread degree — that is, when a drop of the sugar put on the end of the thumb is touched with the tip of the forefinger, and the finger and thumb opened again, draws to a fine thread, and on breaking leaves a drop both on thumb and finger (see Sugar-boiling). When the sugar has boiled to this degree, drain the Chestnuts, and put them into it together with the juice of one lemon and § gill of orange-flower water. Put all these over the fire for a little while, but do not let them boil. Before they are boiling hot, take the pan from the fire and let it stand all night. Next day lift the Chestnuts out of the syrup, letting them drain into it. Boil up the syrup four times, then add more sugar, and boil it to the blow degree — that is, when a skimmerful of the boiling sugar will, when blown through, emit small sparks of sugar. When the syrup is boiled to this degree of heat, put the Chestnuts into it again, let them get thoroughly hot, and then put them into compotiers. (4) Boast some Chestnuts as if to send to table. Peel and remove the inner skin, then put them into a saucepan with jib. of sugar and 1 gill of water ; let them simmer in this for fifteen minutes, then squeeze in a little lemon-juice, and serve with powdered white sugar strewed over them. Compote of Chestnut-paste. — Boast fifty Chestnuts, peel the skins off, and rub them through a coarse wire sieve. Boil 12oz. of sugar to the ball degree, add the Chestnuts, and work all well together in the sugar-boiler with a spatula ; when thoroughly mixed, take it off and put it by until wanted. Shape the paste in the form of Chestnuts, put them on a baking-sheet, and set them in the screen ; roll them in apricot jam, and then dust some caster sugar over them ; put them again in the screen on a wire drainer, and when dry, dip them in some sugar boiled to the crack. Arrange them on a dish, and pour some syrup flavoured with cnraijoa round them. Compote of Vermicellied Chestnuts. — (1) Slit the skins of fifty Chestnuts, and roast them ; when they are done, rub them through a coarse wire sieve on to a dish. Boil 12oz. of sugar to the ball degree, put the Chestnuts into it, and work all together with a wooden spoon while still on the fire. Flavour this paste with vanilla sugar, and rub it through a coarse wire sieve into the compote-dish in a raised pyramidal form ; set it in the screen to dry crisp, and with a teaspoon place small heaps of whipped cream round the base.