Kuri 3, the sweet.

A chestnut wagashi (Japanese tea sweet). As you’ve seen in a previous post, kuri means chestnut. Most “kuri” wagashi are yellow, and taste differently. I prefer that beige one.

These are not the Japanese chestnuts, but Tenshin-guri, Tianjin chestnuts from China. As you see, they are smaller, but Chinese friends explained me the big ones are prefered by Chinese people and there they fight to buy all the stock… so we get the small ones. They are “sweet chesnuts”, more similar to the French ones. We buy them already cooked. Boiled then roast ? Steamed ? Not dry roast.

It seems that kind of sweet chestnut is cultivated in Japan too, but in small quantities. So far, I’ve never seen any in markets, the bakers making this wagashi probably get the exclusivity, like the European “marron glace” maker get all those well shaped Italian chestnut.

So I got “organic” (let’s believe…) Chinese ones.

You can make 3. I mean 3 versions, I’m not putting you on a diet.

The classiest is 100% chesnut, just add a little water. That’s what the good shops sell. BUT, they do theirs from fresh chestnuts. So with my packed pre-cooked ones, that was not so good.

So try, butter and vanilla sugar.

Or, butter and a few drops of Japanese brandy, which is equally good.

Wagashi Saga : Photo-menu of all Japanese sweet posts.