This is another traditional Japanese New Year dish (osechi). I discussed about osechi in my last post. Mashed Japanese yam with chestnuts called “Kuri Kinton” (栗きんとん) is my absolute favorite osechi, and I don’t think I’ve ever missed eating it on New Year’s Day. “Kuri” means chestnut. The meaning of “kinton” is too complicated to explain in a couple of sentences. Basically, “kinton” is a food brings good luck and fortune.
Over the years, I came up with a recipe which is not a traditional way of making but healthier. Traditionally, chestnuts cooked in syrup are used and Japanese yams are boiled and mashed with a lots of sugar and/or other sweetener. It’s sickly sweet to me. Instead, plain boiled chestnuts and baked yams are used in my recipe. I get good quality fresh chestnuts in fall and freeze them for this recipe. If you use food quality chestnuts, they are naturally sweet and don’t need to be sweeten with syrup. The sweetness of yams get intensified when baked so you don’t need to use a lot of sugar or sweetener.
I’ll show the step-by-step instructions here but the shorter version of the recipe and the listing of the ingredients are available at the bottom of this post. Let’s begin!
- Bake Japanese yams until they become very soft. I posted how to bake Japanese yams.
For this recipe, yams need to be very soft. When they are baked for a long time, they start to sweat sugar water.
You’ll know they are very soft by touch and also by look. They look little wet from the sugar water they are sweating.
When you open them, they are golden.
2. While baking yams, boil chestnuts. See how to boil chestnuts here.
3. Also while baking yams, boil dried Gardenia fruit (kuchinashi in Japanese) in water for a few minutes. Liquid from boiling Gardenia fruit colors foods in yellow.
This is what it looks like. You may find these at a Chinese herb store. I buy mine from Japan. This doesn’t change the flavor so you may skip this if it’s hard to fund it.
I usually put it in a disposable tea bag and crush it.
Then I placed the bag in a water.
After it’s done, the liquid has orange color.
4. While baked yams are hot, mash them.
5. Run mashed yam through a mesh sifter while it’s still warm. This is an extra step to have smooth mashed yam. You can skip this if you don’t care about the texture.
Push it through the mesh sifter with a wooden spatula.
Scrape mashed yam coming out of the other side of the mesh sifter so you’ll scrap it off.
Once it’s done, you’ll have smooth mashed yam.
6. Put mashed yam in a post and heat it over medium heat. Add liquid from Gardenia fruit and sweetener to your taste. The dish should be sweet.
Stir continuously so it doesn’t get burn. You want to have thick puree-like texture. If it’s too watery, continue cooking until you’ll get the texture,
7. Stir chestnuts into the pot and mix gently. Remove from the heat.
It’s sweet and filling dish. You don’t eat this at lot in one sitting. You just nibble little bit while tasting other dishes. It can be stored in a freezer so I usually make a large batch and freeze it to enjoy later.
You can actually buy this dish around New Year’s Day at most of Japanese supermakets but homemade one is the best!
- 2 small or 1 large Japanese yams
- 10-12 small or 5-6 large chestnuts
- 1 dried gardenia fruit (kuchinashi)
- 8 oz. water
- 2-3 tablespoons rice syrup
- 2-3 tablespoons sugar
- Bake Japanese yams until they become very soft. See how to bake Japanese yams here.
- Boil chestnuts. See how to boil chestnuts here.
- Boil dried gardenia fruit in water for a few minutes
- While baked yams are hot, mash them.
- Run mashed yam through a mesh sifter while it's still warm
- Put mashed yam in a post and heat it over medium heat. Add liquid from Gardenia fruit and sweetener to your taste.
- Stir chestnuts into pot and mix gently. Remove from the heat.
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