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Dessert

Pistachoe Cream, or Green Cream

A chilled pistachio-based custard flavored with spinach juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pistachoe Cream, or Green Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the base

  1. Pick and finely pound the pistachio nuts.

  2. Boil the milk with the sugar until it reaches a boil.

  3. Add the pistachio nuts to the boiling milk and let it boil for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Cool the milk mixture.

Make the custard

  1. Mix in the egg yolks and egg whites.

  2. Add the spinach juice for color. Mix well.

  3. Strain the mixture several times.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the strained mixture into small plates or pots.

  2. Cook the filled plates or pots in a water bath at 400°F (200°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 + 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. Nuts + spinachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nuts + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 and enrich it as they set, giving a smooth, firm texture.
Egg whites
Add protein that helps the custard set and gives it a lighter structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a creamy custard.
Pistachio nuts
Provide the main nutty flavor and fat that give the cream its character.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens its flavor against the eggs.

The step that matters

Cook in the water bath until set. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and curdle or turn grainy if overheated, so the custard should be cooked gently in a water bath and removed once just set.

Swap the spinach

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

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

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