Turkish Pistachios

Turkish Pistachios

by Regina Schrambling

on 12/12/11 at 03:00 PM

As I learned on two trips to Istanbul, Turkish pistachios are among the edible wonders of the world. They’re tiny but have outsized flavor, with concentrated nuttiness. And while they’re too good to bake with, they’re ideal as a gift (or self-indulgence). You can find them everywhere online, much more easily than even I realized. (These are the kind from Gaziantep.)

To me they’re also in that growing category of little things that mean a lot, like pears and tomatoes. Which is a point that was lost at our party this weekend, when we were going to set out the last of the Istanbul stash along with the American big boys left from a batch of cranberry-nut cookies. I didn’t want to mix the two in one bowl for fear of obscuring the specialness of the Turkish kind, but somehow (I won’t point fingers) that happened. Next morning we noticed all the California fatties had been eaten. The little wonders were mostly left behind, I assume because they looked like more work to shell for less meat.

And that brings up another reason to try them this time of year. Nuts are nutritional wonders of the world, too, but they’re undeniably fattening if you eat too many. Which is hard to do with Turkish pistachios.

via The Epi-Log on Epicurious.com: Turkish Pistachios.