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favourite pistachio recipes- sweet or savoury?

Thanks for any suggestions;)

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  1. This cranberry pistachio biscotti is quite good:


    And I can dig up a copy of a white chocolate chip pistachio cookies that are a big hit. I like to use salted pistachios to contrast with the extreme sweetness of the white chocolate chips.

    2 Replies
    1. re: modthyrth

      The biscotti sound great and I have the ingredients on hand - always a plus.

      1. re: modthyrth

        Both recipes sound great- will have to give them a try;) Thanks for the link!

      2. BAKLAVA, much easier than it sounds: 1) Toast your pistachios on a cookie sheet in the oven; keep stirring them around. 2) In buttered pan, lay three layers of phyllo brushed in between with melted butter. Put a third of the nuts, then three more sheets of phyllo, then another third of the nuts, etc, and finish with phyllo. Cut in small diamond shapes, using sharp knife. Bake @ 350 until golden, 30-40 minutes. Immediately pour over it all of SYRUP and let set overnight or all day so pastry will absorb the syrup. SYRUP: 1 1/2 cups honey, 3/4 cup water, 3/4 cup sugar, 2 slices lemon, 12 slices orange, 6-8 whole cloves, 2 tsps cinnamon: simmer about 15 minutes; pour over baked and cut bakalava while syrup is still warm. If you haven't used phyllo before just keep all of it that you aren't immediately working with covered so it is airtight or it will dry out instantly. Have plenty of butter melted and cooled in advance. It's easiest to use a small brush to apply the butter to the phyllo sheets. Baklava is a spectacular pastry and homemade it is more delicious and much less expensive than bought. Also, there is a shredded phyllo called kataifi that you make up this same way. Both are now available frozen in mainstream supermarkets.

        1 Reply
        1. re: Querencia

          Thanks for the suggestion- my mom makes a pistachio and dried apricot baklava, in addition to a walnut one;) I'm actually better with filo than other types of pastry- trained at a young age to fold;) In our family, a clove is place on top of each diamond of baklava, to help hold down the flaky layers:)

        2. My friend is always asked to bring this when the dinner host needs a new side. It looks so good but alas, I;m allergic to nuts! She also makes a killer pistachio ice cream if you're interested...


          1. The pistachio shortbread on this site, in the Chowhound recipes , is amazing and easy. It is even more popular with the squares partially dipped in melted dark chocolate. The recipe uses butter, but is more than acceptable made with pareve margerine if you are kosher and want to make it with a meat meal. (I find it brings out the nut, as oppposed to the butter flavor this way.)

            1. Pistachio semifreddo! Very much like ice cream, but you don't need the ice cream maker. You just whip cream, and make a meringue, then mix the two together. That's pretty much it. In fact, it's the best pistachio flavored ice cream or gelato-like dessert I've ever tried.


              1. I am still working on this recipe, so this is still kind of a work in progress...but Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, AZ has an AMAZING white pizza that has pistachios, red onions, rosemary and a delicious nutty dry Parm. So first of all, if you have access to a wood-fired stove, do that!! ;)

                What I'm trying to do is turn it into a pasta. So I've been starting with a basic Aglio and Olio type of olive oil sauce, but instead adding a sliced red onion and chopped pistachios (about 1/3 cup or so) to the oil first, then the sliced garlic (say 3-4 cloves), and right before it's done, sprinkling in chopped fresh rosemary (1-2 Tbls). I toss all of that with 1 lb of whole wheat pasta (ideally somethnig like spaghetti or cappellini cooked in well-salted water) and about a half cup of the pasta cooking water. Then sprinkle with about 1/2 cup of shredded Parm. As mentioned, there's still some refining to be done, so obviously amounts to be adjusted to your liking, etc...but even with just my test batches I have been eating them for breakfast-lunch and dinner. Literally, I think this is the only thing I have eaten for the past two days.

                Also, last season's Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard braised pistachios; this is what she said she does: " I usually buy salted, shelled pistachios at Whole Foods or at another store and put them in a pot, cover them with chicken stock or even the chicken broth that you can get at the store, bring it up to a simmer, and just sort of simmer them for a little while until they get just a nice, tender texture, not to the point of being mushy. It's so easy but they just take on a whole other flavor profile and they have a great texture."

                Also...pistachio and orange blossom ice cream, nummers.

                2 Replies
                1. re: ThreeBowls

                  Your work in progress sounds amazing. I've saved this and please, please continue to update. What about coarsely chopped and toasted pistachios, like pinenuts? Wow, I WANT that dish right now.

                  1. re: c oliver

                    Pistachio fans should try Sicilian pistachios if you get a chance. They are a gorgeous deep green colour and have an earthy, spicy taste. Make the best gelato!

                    Finding them in N. America (and even Europe) is tricky. Kalustyans carries them for mail order: http://www.kalustyans.com/catalog.asp... If you happen to find yourself in Paris, you can get them at La Grande Epicerie at Sevres-Babylone and at Izrael's on rue Francois Miron.

                2. Pistachio Falafel - Pistachios, onions, parsley, garlic, cilantro, gooooood ...

                  1. I'm surprised that pistachios have not yet been mentioned in connection with fish preparation, whether baked, broiled, pan-fried or deep fried. They are equal to macadamia nut pieces in each case. But if I mention Chilean sea bass again on this site, I'm afraid some fish-hugging hit squad will fillet me.

                    1 Reply
                    1. re: Veggo

                      Oooh, yum, surprised too that no one has mentioned fish. Boy, you kids are making me hungry today

                    2. This is one of my favorite holiday cookie recipes--more of a shortbread. I increase the salt and add black pepper and cardamom.


                      3 Replies
                      1. re: mamaciita

                        Great minds think alike- I made these this afternoon, and they turned out just like the picture! Might try adding cardamom in the next batch- how much pepper and cardamom do you add?

                        1. re: phoenikia

                          I start with about 1/2 teaspoon each of cardamom seeds and whole black peppercorns, and I crush them with a mortar and pestle.

                      2. I love the pistachio cake in Claudia Roden's Arabesque cookbook.


                        1. I've been making Martha Stewart's Pistachio-Cranberry Torrone every Christmas for three years now--and I always end up making more because it disappears so fast!


                          4 Replies
                          1. re: MsMaryMc

                            I used them in the flattened Mexican wedding cookies recipe I found on tastespotting -- and ate them. All.

                            I also sprinked some on the mini cheese tarts I made for Christmas day.

                            1. re: dolores

                              That sounds wonderful - I've only made those (we call them Russian Tea Cakes) with walnuts.

                              1. re: MMRuth

                                Same here, MMRuth. I've used pecans as well, but had the pistachios on hand.

                                And who knew simply by flattening the cookie could make a difference???

                                1. re: dolores

                                  My mother nixed the pistachio idea so we're going to have walnut ones and pecan ones, but I'm going to try it myself some time. What does flattening do that you like? Thanks.

                          2. One of my favorite ways to enjoy them is in a couscous salad with feta, black olives, etc.

                            1. There are two traditional sweet Turkish dishes I use pistachios for, in addition to baklava. Oh, I do chop my pistachios for baklava, but not finely. Just to about the size of chopped walnuts. Never have tried using them whole

                              Anyway, the two traditional recipes are tel kadayif, which is somewhat similar to baklava, but instead of the traditional "shredded dough" that is so difficult to find in the U.S., I use shredded wheat, a trick I learned from Turkish friends when I lived there. I could have made a fortune selling Nabisco Shredded Wheat on the Black Market! Kadayif can be made two ways. One is to break the shredded wheat/kadayif pastry into crumbles, and use it in layers. The second way is to pinch the seam carefully from each side of a biscuit of shredded wheat, then lay the "unglued biscuit" in the pan side by side and as close as possiible to each other without stackking.

                              Either way, you begin by generously buttering the interior of a fairly large rectangular baking dish. Then add a layer of the shredded wheat, crushed or seamless biscuits. Now flick milk droplets all over the shredded wheat dipping your fingers in a bowl of milk and flipping them over the shredded wheat. The purpose of this is to creat a network of softened shredded wheat threads that will adhere to each other while baking. I use this same milk spatter technique on the buttered sheets of phyllo when I make baklava, as it makes the layers hold together after baking.

                              Next add a layer of chopped pistachios mixed with brown sugar and a bit of butter to hold it together. A small touch of cinnamon is optional,, but just enough to make people 0wonder what "that flavor" is.

                              Top the pistachios with the final layer of shredded wheat, again spattering it with droplets of milk. Now comes the expensive part. Melt enough drawn butter to just submerge all of the shredded wheat. .Bake at 325F for 40 minutes or so. The kitchen should smell "toasty" but never burned!

                              Remove from the oven, and using a cake rack on top of the kadayif, drain off as much melted butter as possible. While the kadayif is still hot, pour a cup or two of room temperature honey over the entire kadayif, making sure there is enough hone to reach the bottom of the pan. Unlike baklava, kadayif can be cut into serving size pieces after cooking. I always use the "pinched buscuit" method, in which case I am careful to cut in the seams and for cross cuts, with the grain, which means that square cuts work best instead of the traditional diamond shapes used for baklava.

                              For fancy presentation, place cut pieces in a paper cup cake cup. Kadayif is sometimes served with a dollop of whipped cream along side it. And the drained butter has a wonderful nutty flavor to it so it can be used in other dishes or simply poured into a plastic container with a tight fitting lid and frozen until you're ready to bake kadayif again!

                              The other "food" is use pistachios for is lokhooum, aka "Turkish Delight." There are tons of recipes for lokhoum on the web.

                              You can also substituted just about any kind of nut (except peanuts) for either of these dishes. I've occasionally run into both dishes made with peanuts, but in both cases I didn't like it. My faves are hazelnust, walnuts, and I've even used pecans with good results. My personal taste is that almonds are often too hard/firm for great results. But to each his/her own.

                              1. I had the delight of trying pistacio brittle (like peanut brittle) at one reception....

                                anyone have a recipe for that?