Sweet Chestnuts

This is a traditional Japanese sweet. However, not many people make these sweets at home because peeling chestnut is very tough. We use sweet chestnuts for “kuri-kinton”, one of the popular “osechi” dish. The photo looks dark because I used brown sugar. To make chestnuts bright yellow, you need to add dried gardenia fruit and white sugar. I prefer natural color and avoiding white sugar, so I accept dark coloring.

Ingredients
Chestnuts　　30pcs
Sugar　　　　200g
Water　　　　400㏄

How to cook
1. Soak chestnuts in water for 8 hours to soften hard skins. You can skip this though.
2. Peel hard skins, and then brown thin skins. Soak in water for 1 hour.
3. Boil chestnuts for 12 minutes. Drain.
4. In a pan, boil water 400cc and sugar. Add chestnuts and cook for 15 minutes.
5. Leave cool. Store with syrup.