"MtnTraveler" > wrote in message
m...
>A friend with several chestnut trees gave us 10 kilo of chestnuts.
>Wonderful! I love chestnuts. Terrible! For many of the dishes we have to
>peel the chestnuts first.
>
> Last year I purchased a chestnut peeler in Shanghai. This may well be an
> insidious device designed to destroy the Western world... person by
> person. A very clever kitchen/torture tool, it looks similar to pliers,
> with one side having a razor edge and the other having gripper teeth. One
> only needs to snip around the chestnut to easily remove the shell. And
> remove bits of finger at the same time.
(snippage)
> I now have a nice bowl full of shelled chestnuts ready for Sunday dinner
> dishes, and sticking plasters on four of my fingers! I think it is time to
> invest in Kevlar gloves.
>

I was always given to understand chestnuts should have an X cut in the base
(with a sharp knife but not some thing designed to peel them while raw).
Then you boil them (briefly) or bake them (again, briefly) to soften the
shell so it can be peeled away by hand. I'm glad you had a nice bowl of
chestnuts, but you could have spared your fingers.

Jill