I grabbed a bag of fresh chestnuts from Go Troppo while shopping in Fyshwick this morning. For a moment, my mind naturally and unconsciously went miles away and the image of old times of Beijing, the place where I was born and brought up, came up so close to me and took over my breath for a time.The bone-splitting winter, small grits and chestnuts being stir-fryed together in a dirty and huge fry wok all over in Beijing winter’s streets (where they make the most delicious chestnuts in the world, I believe), the brown paper bags and teenager me, full of craving and longing for those strangely made nuts so much. If I was with Mom or my sister, I always asked them to buy a bag of them for me. While they, always approved my requests (who would say “no” if they see them?) and let me hold the bag on the way home. That would have been the happinest moment in my teenagerhood. I had a mixed feeling of satisfaction, looking forward, excitement also settled in heart, even the winter seemed not that awfully and unbearably cold any more.

Take now. After looked up a couple of websites, I decided to bake the chestnuts with our oven. Here is a step-by-step instruction of how I did:

1. Wash the chestnuts with water, and wipe them dry with kitchen paper or tea towel;
2. Preheat oven at 220 degree for 10 minutus;
3. Cut a small opening with a sharp knife on each chestnut;
4. Put the chestnuts in a baking tray lined with a foil paper underneath and opening facing up;
5. Bake for 10 minutes, the opening will become bigger and wider, and the flesh of chestnuts would pop out a bit;
6. Prepare suger dissolved in water, stir well and set aside;
7. Take the tray out, drizzle the sugered water into opening of each chestnut, then continue to bake for another 5 minutes;
8. Turn the chestnuts over with the opening sides facing down, bake another 10-15 minutues;

Tada!!!!!!!!!! Done:-) Take the tray out and leave it for 10 minutes to let them cool down. Now ready to taste?

It would be very easy to get rid of skin as the opening would help. I realised the time of my baking was a bit long, so some of the chestnuts were a bit too dry. It might be worth mentioning that the opening size don’t have to be too deep. The ideal one is to just cut the skin and the brown film right outside the flesh, otherwise the heat would go through the skin and quickly dry out the flesh. Also, the part of dripping the sugered water into opening was not as easy as what I thought:-)

It didn’t taste like Beijing’s stir-fry chestnuts, but it was great!