Japanese Food Tips

Raw chestnuts can be cooked either peeled or unpeeled and are usually sold only in autumn in Japan. Chestnuts soaked in syrup are sold the whole year as sweets. Kuri-okowa, kuri-gohan and kuri-kinton are popular Japanese chestnut dishes. Kuri-okowa is glutinous rice (mochi-gome) steamed with raw peeled chestnuts. (Glutinous rice is stickier than the rice used daily in Japan.) Kuri-gohan is regular rice, raw peeled chestnuts and water cooked in a rice cooker. Kuri-kinton is often used in New Years osechi ryouri. Kuri-kinton combines chestnuts soaked in syrup with either sweet chestnut paste or boiled sweet potato paste. The taste is elegant sweetness.