A little unplanned overtime was needed chez Rowe… 

Pistachio biscuits – Biscotti con i pistacchi

Tasked with sourcing pistachios for a big batch of biscuits, Salmon inadvertently caused a crisis by buying them still in the shell! Congratulating himself on the cheaper price and bigger pack, he simply bought the w-r-o-n-g ones! Too late for Trota to send him back to the supermarket, he had to bravely soldier on through the night to shell them one by one. Fortunately Fidget was on hand to help…

This is one successful recipe that Trota can truly and proudly call her own. Appreciated by friends and family, it has stood the test of time. Easy to make too.

You will need: 200g plain flour, 150g unsalted butter cubed, 100g granulated sugar, 2 egg yolks, 100g pistachios (no shells!), few drops of vanilla essence.

In a food processor start by whizzing the pistachios. You will need about 50g for the decoration on the biscuits, so when they are chopped to a medium size, remove some and set aside; keep whizzing the rest until they are very fine (similar to ground almonds).

Add flour, butter and sugar and keep pulsing until you get sand-like crumbs. Finally add the vanilla essence and egg yolks and pulse to the point when the dough just comes together (but don’t overmix). Take out of the food processor, create the shape of a sausage about 4cm Ø (two sausages if you are planning to bake them in batches, which is very likely) and wrap in cling film. Rest in the fridge for at least 30min.

Start bringing the oven to temperature (180°C) and, when you are ready to bake, slice the chilled dough in 1/2cm medallions. Space evenly (leaving room for some expansion) on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Sprinkle a little of the roughly chopped pistachios on each biscuit and lightly press with a flat surface (we use a strong glass tumbler). You might want to place a bit of baking paper over the biscuit before you press it: this is to avoid the dough or the chopped nuts sticking to your tumbler.

Bake each batch in the pre-heated oven at 180°C for 15–20min. Let them cool – and then see just how quickly they disappear when you serve them.

Despite the initial shell-shock, we are very big on pistachios chez Rowe. This is one of our favourite recipes and in fact there will be another pistachio treat coming soon from the cartoon kitchen.

So thank you Fidget for saving Salmon from a roasting…yet again.