When I was a student in Paris, the beginning of autumn term was marked by the scent of roasting chestnuts wafting through the streets. It wasn't until years later, when cooking became important to me, that I realised even seasoned cooks sometimes overlook the subtle but significant differences between French chestnut varieties.
France has two distinct types of chestnuts, each with its own character and culinary purpose.
Châtaignes are wild and small, with a wonderfully intense, almost mushroomy earthiness reminiscent of a forest in the Cévennes, where many of the best châtaignes come from. These are the chestnuts previous generations would have used, the ones that kept mountain families going through harsh winters.
Marrons are their sophisticated, cultivated cousins. Larger, sweeter, and much easier to peel, these are the chestnuts you'll find roasted and served in paper bags by Parisian street vendors each autumn, or selected by French pâtissiers for both traditional and innovative desserts.
In 2020, châtaignes grown in the Cévennes region of France received AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) status, officially recognising their superior quality based on their unique terroir. While some are eaten fresh, most are dried using traditional methods in stone buildings called ‘clèdes’ or ‘sécadous’.
These dried chestnuts are then ground into farine de châtaigne, or chestnut flour, the best of which naturally comes from the Cévennes area.
Chestnut flour offers wonderful culinary possibilities and has the added benefit of being gluten-free. However, its pronounced nutty flavour can be overpowering, so most recipes recommend blending it with regular wheat flour for balance. Because many of these recipes are gluten-free, rice flour is often used in place of wheat flour as a tempering agent.
Traditional recipes using chestnut flour include pain de châtaigne (wholemeal bread made with a percentage of chestnut flour), crêpes de châtaigne, pulenta which is a Corsican chestnut porridge similar to polenta, and the thin pine-kernel studded Castagnaccio cake.
You can also experiment with chestnut flour in recipes for biscuits and cookies by replacing some of the wheat flour with chestnut flour; biscotti, in particular, are lovely when made with a combination of both.
If you collect vintage kitchen tools, you might recognise the long-handled pan with holes in the base, designed for roasting chestnuts over an open fire. In Occitan, this tool is called a ‘brascuda’, a name that evolved to describe the similar large, shallow pans used for cooking mussels at village festivals.
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Street vendors have long been the most accessible way to eat chestnuts because preparation can be a barrier to using them in a home kitchen. To start, their tough outer shells must be scored, then boiled, before peeling, both the outer and inner layers. It is a difficult and lengthy process.
In recent years, the advent of whole cooked chestnuts, already peeled, in glass jars or vacuum-packed pouches has led to an increase in recipes featuring chestnuts. These convenient chestnuts make an excellent addition to roasted Brussels sprouts, or they can simply be braised whole and served as an accompaniment to poultry or game.
Chestnut soup is a traditional recipe from central France, made all the easier to cook using ready-prepared chestnuts and, of course, chestnuts are crucial for many festive stuffing recipes.
Chestnuts also lend themselves, perhaps even more favourably, to sweet dishes. First and foremost, if you've never experienced a proper French marron glacé, you're missing out on one of life's genuine pleasures.
These aren't just candied nuts, they are delectable edible gems, with a price tag often paralleling jewels, and this is due to the way in which they are made: raw chestnuts are slowly coaxed through multiple sugar baths until they become orbs of translucent, sweet perfection. The cities of Lyon and Privas, in Ardeche, have a long-standing friendly feud over who makes the best.
Crème de marron, a sweet chestnut purée, is another chestnut product used for desserts. It is a familiar crêpe filling, but it is probably best known as the star ingredient in a Mont Blanc, which is a heap of mountain-shaped meringue, topped with vermecilli-thin strands of chestnut purée, further topped with whipped cream.
No recipe needed really, except to say that using a potato ricer is the best way to get the strands of chestnut cream, and a grating of dark chocolate to cap it off is a nice addition, as are a few crumbled up marrons glacés.
1. This elegant dessert showcases the wonderful marriage of chocolate and chestnut flavours. For extra chestnut character, substitute up to one-third of the wheat flour with chestnut flour if you make your pastry from scratch, but good-quality, ready-made pastry works well here.
2. Begin by pre-baking a 23-25cm tart shell using pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry) and let cool. For the filling, melt together 100g finely chopped dark chocolate and 3tbsp unsalted butter. Preheat the oven to 150°C. To the chocolate mixture, stir in 1 egg, 200ml cream, 200g crème de marrons, and a pinch of fine salt and mix until well blended.
3. Pour carefully into the prepared tart shell and bake until just set, 20-30 minutes.
4. Serve at room temperature, dusted with unsweetened cocoa powder, and chantilly cream alongside.
