Ah, nuts! Pistachios are a to-dye-for addition to myriad dishes. We have scallops with yams.
Whether tan-shelled or dyed red, pistachios make a great last-minute addition to dishes
My wife and I were recently having a predinner Scrabble game and feeling peckish. We decided to snack on some pistachios. While removing the green nuts from their tan-coloured shells, my wife reminisced about a time when pistachios were always sold tinted a bizarre neon-red colour.
I had forgotten that, but was instantly curious about why pistachio sellers did that.
According to the online nut seller Nuts.com, the practice of dyeing pistachios began in the 1930s in places where they were grown, such as the Middle East.
They were dyed to bring attention to them, and it seemed to work: Pistachios became a popular snack in North America and people didn’t seem to mind that their fingers got stained red when they were eating them.
Another reason the pistachios were dyed was to cover up unappetizing-looking stains caused from traditional and antiquated harvesting methods that saw the nuts sit awhile before being processed.
Nuts.com says red pistachios became scarce by the 1980s because of a limit on pistachio imports in the United States from the Middle East. There was also a huge spike in American-grown pistachios.
Those nuts were harvested using modern techniques, methods now used in other parts of the world, and there was no reason to dye them red because there were no longer any stains to cover up.
That said, some folks still pine for those red pistachios, and places such as Nuts.com realized that and are selling them again. But undyed pistachios are what you find for sale at every supermarket these days, and I prefer them.
The meat of a pistachio in its natural form has a very appealing green/yellow hue.
Because of that, and the nut’s rich flavour when left whole or chopped, it’s a wonderful ingredient to add to myriad dishes, both savoury and sweet.
To give you just a few examples, I use pistachios in stuffings for pork, in coatings for chicken and fish, in toppings for baked oysters, and in or on cookies, cakes and chocolate truffles.
I also sprinkle chopped pistachios on foods I think need a lastsecond hit of colour and fine flavour, such as today’s sumptuous scallop recipe.
In this recipe, large sea scallops are flavoured with lime and curry paste, seared, set on mashed yams flavoured with ginger and then topped with pistachios.
Other colourful accents include pomegranate seeds, fresh herbs and a drizzle of warm yogurt.
When eating pistachios, take heart in the fact that you’ll be enjoying something that, among other things, is a good source of fibre, protein, vitamin B-6 and thiamin, potassium and other minerals.