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Pistachio Ice Cream

A green pistachio ice cream made with milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar, and spinach coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pistachio Ice Cream

Why it works: Pistachio and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 110 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Pistachio Ice Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the nuts

  1. Blanch the pistachio nuts and check for sweetness.

  2. Place the nuts on a baking sheet and toast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 7‑8 minutes until crisp and lightly browned.

  3. Pulverize the toasted nuts with ½ lb of sugar in a mortar.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the remaining sugar with the egg yolks to form a batter.

  2. Slowly add boiling milk to the batter while beating thoroughly.

  3. Heat the mixture to scalding point, stirring well.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the nut paste and cream, then mix in enough spinach coloring to achieve a delicate green.

  2. Cool the mixture and freeze.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Nuts + spinachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pistachio + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base and add richness as they gently heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen ice cream softer and scoopable.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the yolks and sugar thicken.
Pistachio nuts
Supply the main nutty flavor and texture through the toasted nut paste.

The step that matters

Heating the custard to scalding point. Stirring well while heating keeps the egg yolks from overheating and scrambling. Gentle, even heat lets the yolks thicken the base smoothly instead of curdling it.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pistachio, nuts, cream, egg, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits about as well
  2. Spinachthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pistachio, nuts, cream, egg, sugar. 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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