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Dessert

Pistachio Prawlings

A simple pistachio candy made by boiling sugar and adding pistachios.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and pistachio are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,233 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Pistachio Prawlings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a little water.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches the soft ball stage.

Add the pistachios

  1. Add the pistachios to the sugar mixture.

  2. Remove the pan from the heat and work the pistachios into the sugar.

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. Sugar + pistachiotop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves and cooks into a syrup that sets firm as it cools, giving the candy its body and sweetness.
Pistachios
Add nutty flavor, aroma and crunchy texture to the set candy.

The step that matters

Working the pistachios in off the heat. At the soft ball stage the syrup is thick and begins to set quickly as it cools. Stirring the nuts in promptly after removing the pan from the heat keeps the syrup workable so the pistachios coat evenly before it hardens.

“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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