Pistachio Sorbet

The pistachio is a strange nut. Botanically speaking, it's not a nut at all but a drupe—the same family as cherries and peaches—which explains nothing about why it tastes the way it does. That particular flavor, somewhere between sweet and savory, with undertones that remind you of forests and deserts simultaneously, has made the pistachio sacred in cuisines from Iran to Italy. In Sicily, where the volcanic soil around Mount Etna produces what many consider the world's finest pistachios, they've been turning the things into gelato for centuries. The American sorbet version is a newer invention, born partly of necessity (no eggs, no dairy to go off) and partly of the modern obsession with clean, intense flavors. A good pistachio sorbet should taste more of pistachio than any pistachio you've ever eaten in shell form. The trick is twofold: first, roast the nuts gently to wake up their oils without pushing them toward bitter; second, blend them with water and sugar until the mixture is absolutely, impossibly smooth. This requires a high-powered blender and a certain amount of patience. The result is worth every minute—a sorbet so intensely nutty and naturally green that anyone encountering it for the first time will assume you've cheated somehow. You haven't. This is just what happens when you take a very good ingredient and refuse to dilute it.