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Pistachio Ice Cream
Prepare same as Vanilla Ice Cream II, using for flavoring one tablespoon vanilla and one teaspoon almond extract; color with Burnett's Leaf Green.
This is a variation entry rather than a standalone recipe: everything depends on the custard base it points back to. Two things are worth knowing before you start — there are no pistachios in it, and the green comes entirely from a bottle.
- The base you needVanilla Ice Cream II in this book is the cooked-custard version rather than the plain cream one: a milk-and-egg custard base finished with thin cream and frozen. Check the base recipe itself, and use the tablespoon of vanilla and teaspoon of almond extract in place of the flavouring called for there.
- "Thin cream"Period thin cream ran to something like 18-20 percent fat. Modern light cream is the closest match; half-and-half is thinner still. Heavy cream alone will churn dense and buttery in this proportion.
- Burnett's Leaf GreenA commercial liquid food colour sold by Joseph Burnett & Co. of Boston and long discontinued. Any modern green food colouring works; add it drop by drop to the cold custard and stop when the colour looks right, as the exact period shade is not recoverable.
- Almond extract is the flavourA single teaspoon of almond extract in the whole batch is what makes this read as "pistachio." Modern extracts are potent; measure rather than pour.
- If you want actual pistachiosSteep half a cup of finely ground unsalted pistachios in the hot milk before adding the eggs, then strain. Folding in chopped nuts after churning also works, though the original intends neither.
- Custard temperatureCook the base until it coats a spoon, around 170-175F. Push much past that and it will start to curdle, and a strained curdled custard still tastes grainy.
- FreezingThe book assumes a hand-cranked freezer packed with crushed ice and rock salt. In a modern machine, chill the base thoroughly overnight, then churn 20-25 minutes and ripen in the freezer for two hours before serving.
- YieldDepends entirely on the base recipe you are pointed to; check its stated quantities before scaling.
Pistachio ice cream reached American cookbooks through French and Italian confectionery, where ground pistachios were a standard flavouring for creams and ices well before the nineteenth century. What the recipe records here is the later commercial shortcut: almond extract for the flavour and bottled colouring for the green, with the nut itself entirely absent — a substitution that shaped what several generations of Americans expected pistachio to taste like. The brand name is a period marker in itself. Joseph Burnett of Boston built one of the country's best-known flavouring-extract businesses in the second half of the century, a reminder that the well-equipped home kitchen of the period was already stocked with manufactured flavourings bought by brand.