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Dessert

Biscottes, with Pistachios

A sweet biscuit made with sugar, flour, egg yolks, pistachios, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 505 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Biscottes, with Pistachios

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Mix sugar, flour, and egg yolks for 10 minutes, then add the pistachios and mix well.

  3. Spread the mixture on a lightly buttered tin plate (10 inches by 5 inches) to an even thickness.

  4. Cover the surface with 2 ounces of sliced pistachios.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 40-50 minutes until firm to the touch.

  2. Remove from the plate.

  3. Cut into pieces 3 inches long by ½ inch wide.

  4. Lay the pieces flat on plates.

  5. Return to the oven to dry and become crisp.

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.

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. Flour + pistachiotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and structure, binding the dough and giving a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscotti together as it bakes.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the dough brown and crisp as it bakes.
Whole pistachios
Add nutty flavour and crunch throughout the biscotti.

The step that matters

Returning the slices to the oven to dry. Baking the slices a second time drives off moisture so they become crisp. Too little time leaves them soft, while the first bake only sets the dough.

Swap the pistachio

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, butter):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, butter. 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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