Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Pistachio and Almond Creams
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare vanilla ice cream.
Pour boiling water over pistachio nuts and let them sit for a few minutes.
Remove the skins from the pistachio nuts.
Pound the nuts to a paste in a mortar.
Mix the pistachio paste with the ice cream.
Freeze until firm.
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.
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Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together425 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Vanilla + pistachiotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together407 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together638 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Cream + pistachiotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together634 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,301 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Vanilla and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the vanilla
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pistachio, nuts):
- Vanillathe original
- Coconutfits about as well
- Figfits less well
- Avocadofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pistachio, nuts. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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