Boil the chestnuts in plenty of water in two equal batches for 20 minutes. Take the first batch off the heat and leave them in the water to keep them hot. Don a rubber glove and remove one chestnut. Make a cut two thirds of the way around the flat face of the skin and peel it away then ease the rest of the nut out of the skin. If the chestnuts are fresh both the outer and the more troublesome inner skin will come away at the same time. Boil and peel the second batch. Boil the chestnuts until they become soft, then let them cool and peel them. Immerse them in the liquor and let them macerate while covered tightly for about 20 days. After this period, prepare a syrup by dissolving the sugar in boiling water. Let it cool, then add it to the filtered liquor. Either all or part of the chestnuts can be pureed and added to the liqueur to make it very creamy. The classic, lightweight chestnut liqueur Veronica on Working hard on the cottage Oh ... only just found this! What a wrench to leave your beautiful cottage, I hope whoever moves in loves it as much as you do. Iy's such a special pl… Veronica on Working hard on the cottage We are still happily settled in our little house in France, but have taken to spending a few months in Spain in the winter. At first we tried differen… Hi, I was given a huge bag of chestnuts in the autumn and froze them whole (following advice read here).

Make a slit in the skin of the chestnut and roast in a hot oven. Once cooked, and while the chestnuts are still hot, carefully peel the hard exterior shell and fine skin. Fiona Nevile on Perennial vegetables: Tree cabbage Hi Lila, Thanks for your comment. You need to look for seeds on your side of the water, unfortunately :0( Import rewsrictions are tough. Something sim… When the chestnuts have softened it™s easy to remove the skins if you snap the nuts in half, the skin should easily peel away. We found that the nuts that were still hard were the bad ones. Discard these as they would taint the good nuts. In this recipe, brandy is used as the base alcohol. If using high proof rectified spirit, the maceration time will be reduced.Once it’s ready, fine strain to remove the solids and store in a swing top glass bottle in a dark and cool place until required. Besides being onerous, the shelling can be bloody. You must be careful not to let the knife slip. Eventually I put a plaster on my right forefinger and this helped enormously. Maison Briottet maintains a very high level of quality. It is the selection of the ripest fruit, locally sourced where possible, from the most suitable cultivars that provides for the finest flavours. The first step on the ladder in the process is contracting the right growers to produce the finest, best quality, ripe fruit. Then, at the headquarters, the fruits undergo carefully observed maceration with very pure neutral alcohol and blending with the correct proportion of sugars to achieve the balance between fruit flavour, sweetness, acidity and alcohol to create top of the range crèmes and liqueurs. Fiona Nevile on Fiona’s traditional elderflower cordial recipe Hello Angela, The link is to Andy's elderflower chamapgne - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2011/may/12/gardeningadvice-garden…

Fiona Nevile on Working hard on the cottage Dear Veronica, So good to hear from you. I'd love to hear all your news - I often think about you and wonder how it's going for you both... Yes, it's… This week’s recipe was actually several weeks in the works. Inspired by yet another wander through our grocery store, Chris happened upon a bag of Chestnuts and immediately knew he wanted to give Chestnut Orgeat a try – for a couple of reasons:From Saint-Tropez, I drove the first of the winding roads past the town of Grimaud to La Garde-Freinet, a village perched high over the coast where the bric-a-brac shops and galleries sandwiched between family-run restaurants reveal a gentler pace of life than the Riviera. I climbed up to the ruined medieval fort on the hill behind and looked down upon the jumble of terracotta roofs and amber and peach-hued streets. Don’t cut through the chestnut while making a slit, only the skin. You want the heat to penetrate and steam cook the nut. Place the nuts in a wide saucepan and cook very gently in 200ml of water for another 10 minutes with the lid on and without stirring. Carefully remove the nuts and stir in the sugar until dissolved. Return the nuts to the pan and cook gently with the lid off for another five. Place the nuts in a Kilner jar, add the liquor via a fine sieve then add the brandy. Add the Briottet Crème de Chataigne, bourbon, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg white to the shaker. As described in the last chestnut post, use a small bladed knife. Start at the tip and work down towards the base, choosing the flatter side of the nut. The rest of the shell peels away easily if you can remove the base of the nut first.