The chestnuts turned out great. We boiled them last night and about half of them we simply split in half and ate them with a spoon, as shown at left. Simple and delicious. These are sweeter than any other fresh chestnuts I've prepared at home, and were all in perfect condition- no rotten spots, no bugs. A real pleasure to cook and eat. I wish I could use this kind of chestnut everytime, but even if I could find them I doubt I could afford them.
The rest I used tonight for kuri-gohan (chestnut rice). They were cut into smaller pieces (never have to do that with regular chestnuts) and added to a mix of regular Japanese rice and mochi-gome (glutinous Japanese rice). Also added were shimeji mushrooms, abura-age, and it was all cooked in kombu-dashi (kelp broth) seasoned with soy sauce, sake and salt. This is it all finished.
Served sprinkled with goma-shio (black sesame and salt, not shown) and accompanied by pickled cucumbers; braised enoki mushrooms and shirataki (noodles made from devil's tongue jelly); renkon to gobou no kimpira (braised lotus root and burdock root); miso soup with shimeji, tofu and okra; and sanma no kabayaki (pacific saury grilled with a sweet soy-based sauce).
The rice turned out nice, but I realized too late that the meal looked a little too, well, beige. Oh well.
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