Julie’s second dish is Chestnut Braised Chicken. Late fall and winter is the season for chestnut. I love the roasted chestnut sold at the sidewalk during the cold winter. The piping hot, soft, crumbly and sweet chestnut is so heart warming in a cold day.
The Chestnut Braised Chicken is great to be served with rice. I’m sure my family will love this. We normally just enjoy the chestnuts on its own by boiling them. Now, I learn to use it in a dish.
Ingredients
- chicken, cut to pieces
- chestnuts
- broccoli, for plating
- carrot, for plating
- green onion, chopped for plating
- ginger, minced
- garlic, minced
- dark soy sauce
- salt to taste
- rock sugar, few pieces
- white pepper
- cooking wine
- sesame oil
Click on the link below for the instructions.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400F.
 Using a very sharp knife (and being very careful not to cut yourself), cut a 1 inch cross into one side of each nut. The intent is to allow steam to escape gently instead of by explosion, which can be very messy. Put in a baking pan and bake until the skins open and the insides are tender after about 20 minutes.Hot chestnuts peel easier than cold ones, so it’s best to eat right away. So when you remove them from the heat, immediately cover them with a towel and keep them covered as you remove one at a time to peel. Peel away the skin and the pithy white bit inside to get to the sweet kernel. |
 You may marinate the cut up chicken with salt, sugar, dark soy sauce, white pepper, cooking wine, ginger, garlic and sesame oil first, for at least 20 minutes.Otherwise, you may fry the chicken (without oil or very little oil), skin side down to render the its own fat until the chicken is partially cooked. |
 Add in the marinates at this point if you did not marinate the chicken in the first place. Also add in the rock sugar. |
 Add water to almost covering the chicken and brings to a boil. |
 Add the chestnuts, ginger and garlic and let simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the sauce has reduced. |
 Cut the broccoli and carrot in desired size and motives. Blanched them in boiling water.Lorna is seen here arranging the broccoli and carrot on a large plate. Julie always presents her dishes in a very pretty and appetizing way as the Chinese says “one feast with their eyes first”. |
 Lorna also brought lots of peanuts for us to share. |
 And Andrea made a zucchini cake to share too. We just love this community kitchen. The members are very friendly and love to share.Julie, once again, thank you for sharing the delicious dishes. |
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4 users responded in this post
Sounds delicious! Love the blog.
Hi Suanne, you mentioned that you can boil the raw unpeeled chestnuts? Do you still need to cut the skin when you boil it? I enjoy eating chestnuts and the uncooked ones are now plentiful and quite inexpensive. Happy New Year to you and to Ben and your 2 boys.
Hi Joseph, its easier to peel if you make the cut before you boil them.
One can also microwave the chestnuts - just crack them open a bit with a nutcracker(or knife), zap for 2-3 mins at power level 7. Also depends on the size of your microwave oven and the no. of nuts. Love the recipe, will try for CNY next mth!
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