Sauces/Gravy Chestnut Sauce

338. - chestnut sauce
(from The Practical Housekeeper: A Cyclopaedia of Domestic Economy, edited by Elizabeth Fries Ellet, 1857)

Ingredients:

chestnuts​

good gravy​

1 glass of white wine​

white pepper​

salt​

mace or nutmeg​

​

for brown gravy:​

beef-gravy​

​

for white gravy:​

veal-broth​

pounded almonds​

Instructions:

Scald a score of chestnuts in hot water for ten minutes; skin them; let them stew gently for about half an hour in some good gravy seasoned with a glass of white wine, a little white pepper, salt, and mace or nutmeg; and when quite soft, serve them in the dish.​

​

Or:--Pulp them through a colander to thicken the gravy, making it either brown or white, by using in the former beef-gravy, and in the latter veal-broth, with pounded almonds, and without pepper.​

​

Either of these is equally fit for sauce to guinea-bird or turkey, as well as for stuffing the body of the bird.​

Continuing the theme of Thanksgiving for our upcoming November Scott's Battery Newsletter, I have included an original to the Civil War era recipe for Chestnut Sauce! I'd like to hear from anyone who tries this recipe! Thanks!

 

[nitrofd]

That does sound good for fowl, sometimes we have had a Chestnut stuffing.

 

[donna]

Hope some of us try this dressing. Sounds good.

 

[nitrofd]

Hope some of us try this dressing. Sounds good.

To be honest I have not seen chestnuts for sale here in North florida.I really do not remember the last time I saw them av as ilable.