Fall in Italy brings out the chestnut vendors. You’ll find both varieties, marroni and castagne, sold in fruit and vegetable stalls in net bags or loose. They’re oftentimes listed as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd quality based upon their size and color. The best sell for about €13/kg. If you’re not looking for raw chestnuts, you can find roasted chestnuts sold by vendors in the piazza. They’re cooked over open fires in huge perforated pans until their shells are black. The score cut into them prior to roasting makes them open up like clams. You can also find pastries made with chestnut flour or chestnut cream. But the king of the chestnut offerings is the marron glacé.
Marron glacé is made by removing the chestnut from its shell and skin, boiling them in a mixture of water, sugar, and vanilla, then letting them soak up the liquid until they are soft and tender. This process is easy, but takes several days. Here’s one recipe we came across:
- Place 2 pounds of shelled chestnuts in a large pan with just enough water to cover them. Bring the water to a boil and cook the chestnuts for 10 minutes.
- Drain the chestnuts and discard the cooking liquid. Using a clean dish towel, rub the thin skin off the cooked chestnuts. Be careful as they will be a little warm, but that's how they need to be to remove the skin quickly.
- In a separate pan, bring 2½ cups of water, 2 pounds of granulated sugar, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla to a boil stirring constantly. Continue cooking the sugar mixture for 5 minutes, but this time stirring occasionally.
- Add the prepared chestnuts to the boiling syrup and stir the chestnuts until the whole mixture returns to a boil. Continue cooking the chestnuts, frequently stirring, for 10 minutes.
- Pour the candied chestnuts, along with the syrup, into a large container and loosely cover it. Allow the chestnuts to soak in the syrup for 12 to 18 hours.
- Add the chestnuts and syrup to a clean pan and repeat the process; this time boiling them for 2 minutes and then soaking the mixture, loosely covered, for 18 to 24 hours. Repeat the entire process a total of 3 to 4 times, until the sugar syrup has been absorbed by the chestnuts.
- For long-term storage or to prepare as gifts, preheat an oven to 250°F and arrange the candied chestnuts on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place the baking sheet into the oven and turn off the heat. Allow the chestnuts to dry in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour until they have firmed up and the surfaces of the nuts are dry. Store the marrons glacé in an airtight tin or if making for gifts, put into paper cases and box, or wrap in cellophane.
They take a long time to make, but the steps seem pretty easy. The marroni are said to be larger than the castagne. Shelled and peeled chestnuts look like brains with wrinkled surfaces separated into halves that are connected. The marroni are said to have smoother wrinkles and their halves remain connected better than castagne. I suspect many marroni are damaged, either by splitting in half or by crumbling apart, during the cooking process. This, combined with the long preparation time, may be why marron glacé are so expensive.
I’ve tasted marron glacé before that were dried. The surface looks dull and a bit white from the dried sugar coating. One of the shops in Padova had a pot of fresh marron glacé in their window. The marron glacé were arranged on round pieces of parchment paper and stacked 4-5 levels high inside of a steel pot which still had syrup on the bottom. These marron glacé are shiny and show off their beautiful brown color and texture. They were not priced, but I just wanted a few. I went into the shop and asked the clerk for 4 marron glace. He grabbed a small plastic contained, placed 4 marron glacé inside, the weighed them. I could see on the cash register that the price read €0,77. Only €0,77? So inexpensive from the dried kind I’ve had before that were €3 to €5 a piece! I told the clerk to make it 10 marron glacé. He grabbed a bigger container and filled it with 10 beautiful marron glacé – plump and dripping with syrup. He weighed them and it read €1,90. I fished out a €2 coin from Cinzia’s lovely leather coins purse (ask her to see it). He gave me a look and said, “No. €19,90.” Whatever the unit price was, he must have been too lazy to enter the last zero. So if they were €66,60/kg he just entered 666 and knew to multiply it by 10. I peeled off a €20 note and left with my prize.
I’ve tasted marron glacé before that were dried. The surface looks dull and a bit white from the dried sugar coating. One of the shops in Padova had a pot of fresh marron glacé in their window. The marron glacé were arranged on round pieces of parchment paper and stacked 4-5 levels high inside of a steel pot which still had syrup on the bottom. These marron glacé are shiny and show off their beautiful brown color and texture. They were not priced, but I just wanted a few. I went into the shop and asked the clerk for 4 marron glace. He grabbed a small plastic contained, placed 4 marron glacé inside, the weighed them. I could see on the cash register that the price read €0,77. Only €0,77? So inexpensive from the dried kind I’ve had before that were €3 to €5 a piece! I told the clerk to make it 10 marron glacé. He grabbed a bigger container and filled it with 10 beautiful marron glacé – plump and dripping with syrup. He weighed them and it read €1,90. I fished out a €2 coin from Cinzia’s lovely leather coins purse (ask her to see it). He gave me a look and said, “No. €19,90.” Whatever the unit price was, he must have been too lazy to enter the last zero. So if they were €66,60/kg he just entered 666 and knew to multiply it by 10. I peeled off a €20 note and left with my prize.
We tried a coupe once back in our apartment. Wow! They were nice and moist, perfectly firm, and delightfully delicious. I wish I could make a batch of marron glacé, but I don’t have the equipment here in Italy and can’t get the marroni back in the States. Oh well. What I do have is a pocket full of twenties, so that’ll work.