Why it works: Sugar and pistachio are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,233 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Prawlongs
Ingredients
Directions
Make the coating
Prepare a pan of boiling syrup by combining sugar and water.
Coat the nuts in the syrup, then remove and let them dry.
Repeat the coating process for a second time.
Color and finish
For red prawlongs, mix water with cochineal and add half to the syrup for the first coating and the other half for the last coating.
Ensure the nuts are well-coated and dry before storing.
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.
-
Sugar + pistachiotop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,233 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup that hardens into a crisp, sweet coating around the nuts.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can form a syrup that spreads evenly over the nuts.
- Pistachio nuts or barcelona nuts
- Provide the crunchy centre and nutty flavour that the sugar coating surrounds.
The step that matters
Let each coat dry before the next. Sugar syrup hardens as water evaporates. If the nuts are still wet when recoated, the layers stay tacky and can clump or turn dull instead of forming a crisp shell.
“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.
You might also like
Pistachio Ice Cream36 recipes
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.