The photogenic green and purple tinged pistachio is going nuts on social media. But it’s more than just a pretty ingredient, with a long culinary history in Middle Eastern and Italian cuisines
You can see why pistachios are trending on social media. They’re good-looking nuts. Crack open the shell with a satisfying click and you’ll be rewarded with an almost jewel-like green hue with a beautiful purple halo.
It helps that they taste as good as they look – a mix of nuttiness, bitterness and sweetness that makes them work in sweet and savoury dishes.
While dessert is the most obvious destination for a pistachio, they’re versatile enough to work in a range of dishes. In Melbourne, Ciao Cielo has a pasta dish of rigatoni, pistachio cream and burrata. The pistachios are roasted, blanched and peeled to showcase their glorious green hue before being blended into a puree with pasta water and butter to create a velvety sauce.
Omnia Bistro has a salad of Ramarro Farm lettuce, pistachio praline and pickled witlof, while Ombra Salumo Bar’s pork and veal terrine comes with pistachio and carrot mostarda.
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Brunetti Classico owner, Fabio Angele, uses pistachio in a range of Italian desserts, from a cannoncino to a hot cross bun with pistachio crema, and even a pistachio cafe latte.
“Pistachios are a very Sicilian ingredient,” Angele says. “The southerners really look at all their produce and try to use it as much as they can, which is why they even cook pasta and savoury things with pistachios.
“You can use it in everything from gelati and biscuits to pasta. It’s a very flexible ingredient with a really pleasant flavour.
“We’ve always used it, but now that it’s trending we put it in more things to give it a little twist, which is why we’re doing it in hot cross buns.”
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Angele is using pistachio cream in place of Nutella.
“Nutella can be too much, pistachio crema gives a nice, sweet addition to food without being too rich,” he says.
“Pistachios add a beautiful rich flavour to dishes. Walnuts have been using it in salads for years, so why not pistachios?”
A word of warning for those on a budget, though: “It’s probably one of the most expensive nuts you can buy,” Angele says.
While Brunetti Classico grinds its own nuts to make pistachio crema, you can now get in in a jar. When Pistachio Papi launched in May 2023, it sold 3,500 jars in four minutes. This year, it’s looking to import 500 tonnes into Australia. Its recent collaboration with Krispy Kreme was the biggest in the doughnut retailer’s local history, selling out every day before 10am at all stores.
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In Sydney, Cafe Levant co-owner Jinan Afiouny Ammoura uses Pistachio Papi in its viral pistachio iced matcha.
“The flavours work really well together,” she says. “The pistachio cream gives the drink a creaminess and mellows the matcha, which can be a bit grassy.”
She’d noticed that matcha was trending on social media and was looking at a way of giving it a Middle Eastern spin.
“Pistachio is a very popular Middle Eastern ingredient, not just in sweets but in a lot of savoury dishes as well,” she says.
“They are sweet, but not dessert-sweet; they’re a little more crumbly texture-wise than a cashew and have a fresher green note. As soon as you roast a pistachio, that green note goes and it becomes really beautifully crumbly and nutty with a touch of sweetness at the end.”
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Afiouny Ammoura uses toasted pistachios with savoury dishes such as rice pilafs, freekeh and chicken.
For sweet dishes, the raw nut is usually paired with orange blossom and rosewater, which complements its green notes. As well as being versatile, Afiouny Ammoura attributes pistachio’s social media popularity to its prettiness.
“Depending on where you source your pistachios, they can have a green or purple hue,” she says. “It can really elevate dishes.
“I think it’s trending because it’s different. Pistachio has always a little bit of a shy cousin to other nuts in Australia, and as people are becoming more aware of different cuisines, they’re discovering other ingredients.
“When my parents came to Australia in the ’70s, pistachios weren’t a thing. In the Middle East they’re more prevalent. They’re roasted and eaten as a snack. Mum told me that when my parents started their business, Nutroasters, the first thing they bought was four bags of raw pistachios, so Dad could roast them in the garage.”
In the Yarra Valley, Zonzo has created the Cicchio Pistacchio Spritz. Director Rod Micallef says the drink, which was released in June 2024, is Zonzo’s second best-seller.
“It’s delicate and quite beautiful,” he says. “As a spritz goes, it is the most wine-driven spritz that we have. There’s enough complexity to interest those hardened wine fans. But its joyful and playful, too.”
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It has notes of honey, melon and pistachio, with a creamy finish.
“It’s something I wanted to do for a long time,” Micallef says. “My daughter is obsessed with pistachio, which gave me the idea.
“It started off as a pistachio liqueur. I blended it with prosecco, but it didn’t quite work. I added a hint of rosewater and honey and it really works well together. We serve it in the restaurant in a big wine glass full of ice, a slice of pink grapefruit and a basil leaf. Al those aromas work well together.
“In Europe, pistachios are huge. Here, it’s starting to really build interest.”
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