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Pistachio Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream flavored with lemon zest and pistachios.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pistachio Ice Cream

Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pistachio Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Break the eggs into a pan and beat them well with a wooden spoon.

  2. Add the cream and beat until combined.

  3. Stir in the lemon zest, syrup, cinnamon, and mace.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the mixture while stirring constantly to prevent burning until it thickens and curdles.

  2. Remove from heat and mix in the ground pistachio nuts.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve and pour it into a freezing pot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Cinnamon + pistachiotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Lemon + pistachiotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the custard base as they cook and curdle, giving the ice cream its body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smooth, creamy texture after freezing.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and softens the freezing texture by limiting ice crystal formation.
Pistachio nuts
Provide flavour and a nutty texture through the finely ground nuts.

The step that matters

Boil while stirring constantly. Egg proteins set as the custard heats, so it can curdle or scorch if left unattended. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and lets the mixture thicken smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, lemon, syrup, cinnamon, pistachio, nuts):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, lemon, syrup, cinnamon, pistachio, nuts. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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