Rock-roasted Chinese Tianjing chesnuts in Flushing

[pacocap]

This is my first post on this wonderful forum. I joined this community so I could post this here. I think this is the place where it would be most apppreciated. I have posted a video of this on YouTube. The following is taken directly from my YouTube comments.

I had the great pleasure of running into Ken, the 'Chestnuts King', while visiting the Asian neighborhood of Flushing, NY before Xmas. He let me take these videos and explained to me the long, slow process of preparing these small, sweet, imported Chinese Tianjing chestnuts in the traditional manner. Well, actually, traditionally they are stirred by hand with a shovel, in a huge wok, over an open wood fire. Ken uses an imported, ingeniously simple, kind of gas-fired tumbler to do most of the stirring, however, there is still a lot of manual labor involved. He explained to me that the chestnuts themselves are key to the whole operation. They come from a single mountain where the trees are ancient and renowned. They are so popular that they are mainly exported to the lucrative Japanese market, so finding them at all, in this country, is a rare treat. I have included the various stages of roasting from first heating the rocks to (eventually) a scorching 700°C, to the addition of honey syrup. (Click the 'CC' button to see closed captions at each step.) The whole process takes about an hour. Watch how Ken lovingly stirs the nuts with a scraper, picking out any rocks that stick to them. The smell is intoxicating--a combination of sweet honey smoke and a wood-fire-like aroma coming from the roasted shells. The final result is a chestnut with a shiny shell that is easily broken with your thumbnails and removed in its entirety--without pre-scoring the shell at all. And they don't explode because the small pebbles distribute the heat evenly so they heat up gradually. The meat comes out whole and is beyond sweet.The machine itself is fascinating, almost mesmerizing, as Ken's wife sweetly sings out her mantra, "just-roasted chestnuts now ready to sell . . .", continuously, in Mandarin. People gather around to view the spectacle. Ken told me that he is the only person in Flushing, and probably New York, who roasts this type of chestnut in the traditional way. If you want to try them, be aware that they are only available in winter and, once they sell out, they're gone 'til next year. The taste of these is incredible. I have never had such sweet, tender, easy-to-peel chestnuts. Fantastic. This is truly a cultural and a gastronomic marvel.

The video is almost 7 minutes long and, if you view it directly on the YouTube site (click the YouTube logo at the lower right), you can enable captions by clicking the 'CC' button at the lower right on the player. There are brief comments about each step from heating the rocks to selling the finished product.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riMiYH3p-hU

The cart is in front of Oriental Express Food, 41-40 Main St., Flushing, NY. It is within easy access by taking the 7 line from Grand Central Station or Times Square all the way to the end--Flushing-Main Street / Roosevelt Avenue. It's just a few blocks south of there (Google maps).

Two good reviews about The Chestnuts King are online:

No Open Fires Here, but Plenty of Roasted Chestnuts - NY Times

Off the Beaten Path: Flushing's Tsingtao Roasted Chestnut Man - Serious Eats