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Pistachio Paste

A sweet, green paste made from marshmallows, milk, sugar, pistachios, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and pistachio 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 Paste

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt marshmallows over steam.

  2. Add boiling water and cook until smooth.

  3. In a separate pot, boil milk and sugar for 6 minutes without stirring.

  4. Combine the milk mixture with the melted marshmallows.

  5. Add almond extract, pistachio nuts, and green coloring.

  6. Beat until cool enough to spread.

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. Almond + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Almond + nutstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

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

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Marshmallows
Melt into a smooth, sticky base that gives the paste its body and binding.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the marshmallow base into a spreadable texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the paste and helps it set firm as it cools.
Pistachio nuts
Provide the main nutty flavor and a slightly grainy texture throughout the paste.

The step that matters

Boil milk and sugar without stirring. Stirring a boiling sugar syrup can encourage crystals to form, leading to a grainy texture. Boiling it undisturbed for the full six minutes helps it reach the right concentration to set smoothly once combined and beaten.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Cashew nutfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, almond, pistachio. 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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