Chestnut Jam

Chestnuts feature very much in Corsican cooking (Corsica is an island off the South of France), so much so that they name an entire region after it (la Castagniccia).

I remember on my trip there a couple of years ago, we were delighted to find ourselves camping under a chestnut tree. While it wasn't the season for chestnuts, we picked some leaves, and Rémi's mom made a Corsican cheesecake on the leaves. C'est magnifique.

In French cooking, chestnuts are used in both savoury and sweet dishes. While not a Corsican dish, there is a famous French dessert named after its highest mountain. The Mont Blanc is made of mashed chestnuts shaped like its namesake and topped with chantilly cream at its peak. I guess you have to like chestnuts very much to enjoy this dessert.

One of our favourite toppings with natural plain yoghurt is chestnut jam. Talking about yoghurt, despite the variety of flavours on supermarket shelves, I reckon the healthiest and most versatile option is to buy plain ones, and create your own flavours using jams, honey, fruits etc. Unfortunately, unsweetened plain yoghurt is not always the most popular, and hence there are less brands to choose from.

The below chestnut jam recipe has been translated from the following website. The proportion of peeled chestnuts to sugar is supposed to be 1:1, but we find that overly sweet and halved the proportion. Not sure if it will affect the shelf life of the jam, but it will hopefully extend our lives with a reduced sugar diet.


Chestnut Jam (Confiture de Châtaignes)
makes 2 jars

500g chestnuts (weight after it has been shelled and peeled)
250g sugar (recipe calls for 500g, but we find it too sweet)
180ml water

Make slits on the chestnut shells. Boil for about 10 minutes so that the shells are softened and easier to peel. After removing all the shells, boil the whole chestnuts for another 45 minutes. Peel off the second layer of skin and remove rotten parts.

Weigh the final quantity of chestnuts. Adjust the amount of water and sugar to be used accordingly. Smash the chestnuts, but leave some chunkier pieces if you like a chunkier texture.

Dissolve sugar in water. Add the chestnuts and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Voilah, you now have chestnut jam.

It goes very well with plain natural yoghurt.