SHF #21 – Ice Ice Baby – Pistachio Gelato

the delicious life is calling all cooks for a special summer edition of the SHF – Sugar High Friday, and of course I willingly oblige to anyone asking me to bring out that ice cream maker under the current hot weather conditions.

For this event I chose to recreate a childhood favorite of mine – Italian Pistachio Gelato. Nowadays, pistachio ice cream seems to be a synthetically green colored, artificially flavored smooth mass, but I remember the pale green of real Italian ice cream where pappa made all the varieties in his ice cream parlour himself… and the intense taste of real pistachios.

Shrek-a-licious Ice Cream

Shrek would approve 🙂

You need: an ice cream maker – and a blender or food processor.

Ingredients:

• 2 egg yolks
• 3 tablespoons vanilla syrup, such as DaVinci or Torani (or 3 tb of sugar, more to taste)
• 250 ml (1 cup) milk
• 250 ml double cream
• 90 g (3 oz) pistachios, without shells
• 1 tablespoon chopped blanched almonds

Note: this isn’t very sweet, I love my ice cream not that sweet – if you want sweeter ice cream, add more sugar or syrup.

On top of a hot water bath, stir egg yolks and syrup and milk to a thin custard. Meanwhile, soak the pistachio kernels in boiling water for a few minutes. Drain. Scoop out 1 or 2 tablespoons of the pistachios and set aside with the tablespoon of almonds.

In a blender, blend cream and remaining pistachios to a very fine greenish puree. The finer, the better. Add pistachio cream to the custard, cool in the refrigerator.

With a large knife, chop the pistachio and almond pieces coarsely.

When the ice cream base is cold, pour into your ice cream maker and proceed according to ice cream maker manual. A few minutes before the ice cream has the desired consistency, add the chopped nuts.

Serve in fancy dessert glasses and decorate to your liking 🙂

Now, where’s that spoon…