Spice up the autumn and prepare for winter with our recipe for this warm and nourishing dish
Autumn in China doesn’t truly begin until you catch the aroma of sugar-fried chestnuts from a roadside stall. Passersby stop to buy the popular snack piping hot out of the wok, even though it sometimes means a half-hour wait for a fresh batch.
The tradition has existed since at least the 13th century, when the scholar Shu Yuexiang (舒岳祥) wrote in his poem “Eating Chestnuts for the First Time (《初食栗》)”: “[I’m] happy to see chestnuts as the days start to cool near Chongyang Festival (新凉喜见栗，物色近重阳),” which occurs on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. He added: “The steamed chestnuts bring warmth on cold nights, and still taste good chewed in hunger the next morning (寒宵蒸食暖，饥晓嚼来香).”
Dishes themed around chestnuts also grow in popularity during the fall, but probably only braised chicken with chestnuts (板栗烧鸡) can rival the street snack. The dish has been claimed as traditional in the provinces of Sichuan—where it’s eaten with fresh peppers—Hunan, Jiangxi, and northeastern China. These regional varieties differ slightly in their cooking methods, and there are similar dishes in other provinces, such as 栗子鸡 (“chestnut chicken”) from Shandong and 板栗焖鸡 (“chestnuts braised with chicken chunks”), and 栗子焖鸡 (“chestnuts braised with chicken”) in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Shanxi.
Chestnut Chicken: The Perfect Autumn Dish is a story from our issue, “Upstaged.” To read the entire issue, become a subscriber and receive the full magazine. Alternatively, you can purchase the digital version from the App Store.
Tan Yunfei is the editorial director of The World of Chinese. She reports on Chinese language, food, traditions, and society. Having grown up in a rural community and mainly lived in the cities since college, she tries to explore and better understand China's evolving rural and urban life with all readers.
