Kuri chakin / mashed steamed chestnut cakes

These little sweets are a personal experiment that I made as a substitute for kuri kinton, a chestnut dish for financial luck that is often part of the New Year's Day meal. While standard ingredients for kuri chakin are only chestnuts and sugar, I mixed chestnuts with shiroan bean paste and roasted satsumaimo. These sweets are not as yellow as typical kuri kinton, so they might not have the Midas touch, but they can provide a gently sweet reward and relaxing moment.

One chakin cake (1/10 of recipe):
54 calories; 1.0 g protein; 0.2 g fat; 12.1 g carbohydrate; 10.7 g net carbs; 1 mg sodium; 0 mg cholesterol; 1.4 g fiber

Kurimanju / chestnut cakes

A humble autumn confectionery with candied chestnut and white bean paste. Tastes great with bitter or strong unsweetened tea.

Kuri no kanroni / candied chestnuts

Japanese-style marron glacé. The autumn harvest is first colored by kuchinashi gardenia fruit, then sweetened with sugar and mirin for glossy finish. As I mainly make this in order to prepare kuri kinton--mashed satsumaimo sweet potato with candied kuri chestnuts, for financial luck (yellow for gold) in the osechi New Year's meal--it is a reminder that the end of the year is slowly drawing near. It is, in other words, the first of many preparations for the New Year's Day meal. To make perfect kuri no kanroni, you need to take off lots of the edible portion, as even a small piece of inner skin on the surface will cause discoloration. I make only a few "perfect" kuri no kanroni, leaving the majority of chestnuts in a relatively natural state with lots of blemishes. But they are all equally and unbeatably tasty.

Kuri gohan / steamed rice with chestnuts

A fall rice dish with starchy, sweet chestnuts.

1/3 of above recipe:
225 calories; 3. 7g protein; 0.6 g fat; 48.1 g carbohydrate; 46.8 g net carbs; 191 mg sodium; 0 mg cholesterol; 1.3 g fiber

1/2 of recipe:
338 calories; 5.6g protein; 0.9 g fat; 72.2 g carbohydrate; 70.3 g net carbs; 286 mg sodium; 0 mg cholesterol; 1.9 g fiber