10/20 Battle Chestnut

As usual, I waited till the last minute to cook my chestnut dishes, but here they are. It was my mom's birthday, so it was a good opportunity to try out some dishes. The first is a chestnut ravioli from the french laundry cookbook. Now, i've cooked a few of Keller's dishes, and every single time, I realize why they charge as much as they do at the Laundry. This food is complicated, and doing it alone is a tall task. So, definitely want to thank my mom for the help pulling all of this together. So back to the ravioli... the filling was a puree of roasted chestnuts, mascarpone and butter. The recipe was actually for agnolotti, but after struggling to roll out the pasta dough, i decided ravioli was going to be far easier. The sauce was made with pureed celery root, potato, heavy cream and fontina cheese. The sauce to me was the highlight, it was amazingly light and refined.

The second dish was quite a bit easier. Just a chestnut and fennel soup recipe I found in Gourmet. The fennel provided a nice bright finish to the chestnuts. The soup could have been a bit smoother, but the flavors were there.

To be honest, i'm somewhat happy battle chestnuts is over. Peeling 4lbs of roasted chestnuts was not fun. Rolling out the pasta dough was frustrating and trying to do all this in one meal was maybe a bit much. But, everything worked out in the end and the food was quite tasty. What else can you ask for.