How to Peel Chestnuts?

About this series "Small & Smart Tips": Tips for everyday cooking tasks and challenges.

I usually cut a cross on the chestnut shell, roast them in 425F oven. The shell cracks open during roasting. When they cool a bit, I peel them. It works, but not perfectly. Problems:

Hard to cut a big enough cross. I have a set of Shun Classic knife. I tried w/ the smaller knives to saw-cut a cross on the shells, not sharp enough and hurt myself a couple of times. I ended up using the Santoku to "chop" crosses. (Bad for the knife.) Chestnuts hardly provide flat horizontal surfaces, so often the crosses can not be made big enough with the Santoku chopping method. This leads to difficult peeling afterwards.

Last Fri evening, I was at the Fifth Ave & 58's street area, and noticed the chestnuts at the street vendors' are cut differently-- no cross cut, a single straight cut horizontally across the nuts' "belly". The yellow nut are generously exposed after roasting. There was no peeling almost, just pick up the nuts inside. What a smart cut idea!

But what knife to use to cut it this way? I asked the vendor. He pointed me to his two helpers on the side, there they were, leaning against a wall corner, cutting the shells with a utility slide cutter! They offered to let me try one-- just hold a chestnut in one hand, slice cut open across the surface with the other hand. Cutter is very sharp, so super easy. How come I never thought about that? I not only walk by them all the time but bought roasted chestnuts from them before. How come I never even noticed that?!

For chestnut lovers, get a new utility knife from a hardware store, cleanse it thoroughly and dedicate it for chestnut use. And please be grateful to the street vendors for their smart invention.

(Williams Sonoma website and Amazon.com sell "chestnutter", which is a more proper looking kitchen tool than a utility knife. But reviews are mixed. I have not tried it. But I am convinced that the street vendor's method is very effective and easy.)