I have something to get of my chest.
栗子 (lì zi) are trees in the genus Castanea. There are several of such around the northern hemisphere which supply their nuts for human consumption. Here, I want to look mainly at 板栗 (bǎn lì), Castanea mollissima, the Chinese chestnut as these are what are available not only here, but most places. The most common chestnuts, Chinese chestnuts are joined by the European chestnut, C. sativa, aka known as Spanish chestnut; the Japanese chestnut; C. crenata; but sadly not the near-extinct American chestnut, C. dentata.
Not chestnuts are the horse chestnuts, which are so-named because they look like chestnuts but are unrelated and mildly poisonous to humans. Neither are water chestnuts which aren’t even nuts in any sense; they are tubers of an aquatic herbaceous plant.
Of course, the name chestnut has nothing to do with chests of any sort. It came into English from the French chesteine which in turn came from the Latin name. Chestaine morphed into chesten so we had chesten nuts for a while and this gradually changed into chestnut. Th name derives back to the ancient Greek κάστανον referring to a place called Castania where the nuts were prolific. No one is sure where this place was in Greece and there are competing theories. The Italian polenta was originally made using chestnut flour from antiquity until the 17th century imported the dreaded maize/cØrn instead.
Chestnuts are unusual among nuts in that they contain little in the way of protein or fat, instead being mostly carbohydrates. Something to consider if you are avoiding carbs for any reason.
Peeled chestnuts
As a child in the UK, I loved the smell of roasting chestnuts around this time of year and still associate them with Christmas. Street vendors hawked them on every corner. However the actually chestnuts disappointed, although they were popular. So I was delighted to find the same thing here, not only at Christmas which is not celebrated in China. As in other places, here they are roasted in a mix of salt and sugar. I’d guess this is how most are eaten all across China.
Roast Chestnut lady in Liuzhou
They are very common and are sold raw and cooked, the latter usually vacuum packed but sometimes frozen, in supermarkets.
A number of dishes use them. Fuchsia Dunlop has a recipe for Sichuan chicken and chestnuts in her The Food Of Sichuan (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) as well as a recipe for Red-cooked pork and chestnuts in her The Land of Fish and Rice (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), her book on eastern Chinese cooking.
My take on Chicken and Chestnuts Sichuan style - not pretty but tasty.
There are other regional variations on the chicken dish. I often make the Sichuan version in winter. The chestnuts give a texture like roast potatoes. I think I know what might be on the chez liuzhou menu for Christmas.
