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Pistachio Macaroons

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pistachio Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Blanch and peel the pistachio nuts and sweet almonds.

  2. Pound the nuts in a mortar to a soft paste, moisten with egg white.

  3. Add sugar, maraschino, and spinach coloring to the paste.

  4. Form the paste into balls about ¾ inch in diameter using a teaspoon.

  5. Place the balls on sheets of paper, leaving 2 inches between each.

  6. Dust with finely powdered sugar.

  7. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Pistachio + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

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

  2. Pistachio + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together110 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  4. Almond + spinachtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together352 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Nuts + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Swap the spinach

The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pistachio, nuts, almond, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pistachio, nuts, almond, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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