If you don’t find or don’t want to use canned chestnuts,
there are several ways to cook them. To boil them, as I did, cross-hatch each of them at the top (to keep them from exploding and make easier to peel), simmer in boiling water for five minutes, and peel. Peeling was messy, a bit time consuming, and not particularly easy, but didn’t require any special technique. Consider paying a kid to do this in the future…