ROOTS & WINGS

17. ROOT: Pistachio Tiramisu

This is definitely a fave I ate a lot as a kid and young adult. Admittedly not this version, though, but the classic tiramisu.

That love skittered to a screeching (literally!) halt when I got food poisoning from a convenience tiramisu we'd bought at the supermarket, a rare occasion as my Mom usually made it herself. (But we needed it for unannounced guests.)

I thought I bloody died. I've NEVER had such pain before, or after. Let's leave it at that. Anyway, from then on, for the following decade+, I avoided tiramisu like the devil holy water. But bit for bit – and when I knew the respective friend / relative had made it themselves – that got better again.

So doing this recipe is both exorcizing the "tiramisual devil" and having one of my most beloved sweets again, made with my own hands.

And it's easy, dudes, bloody easy even... and there's no excuse to not make it yourselves.

Of course, I'm always a little "different", so instead of classic tiramisu, here is the version I first encountered on a trip to Trier, about 40 miles from my place just beyond the German border.

I'd sat in an Italian restaurant for lunch and thought I'd have some tiramisu as dessert – I mean what could go wrong when the "pros" made it, right? – when the waiter said that "classic" was out already but they'd have ample pistachio tiramisu left.

"You Germans aren't very eager to try out new things," he'd said, shrugging with a long face, which had changed to delight when I'd said, "Know 'classic' already, so 'Her damit'!"

Well, what can can I say?

First: yeah, that cliché id true, not only on the culinary level.

Second: Here we go-oh!

Oh, a last thing! The recipe is out of the same cook book I already got "11. Sa Coccoi (Sardinian Pumpkin fritters)"  from: Sardinian cook Serena Loddo's – Come a Casa (Like at home).

And now off to the kitchen for preps It may be really easy to make, BUT: it gotta rest several hours (/ overnight in the fridge before it's really great.




Serves: 6 servings Recipe.; 8-10 Me BUT: my stomach doesn't manage common Italian portions anymore.

Prep Time: about 25 minutes Recipe; about 1 hr Me. BUT: I gotta shell the nuts, find out how long to soak the lady fingers in the espresso so they didn't dissolve, etc.

Degree of Difficulty: Easy (a tat tricky)





WE NEED


360 ml / 1.5 US cups Espresso Really try getting real one, means from an Italian deli / café. Or brew it yourself. In any case you taste it!

200 ml / 6.75 US fl.oz. cold cream NOT low-fat.
50 gr / 1.75 oz. sugar

250 gr / 8.8 oz. pistachio cream With at least 45% pistachios. After reading the ingredients, though, (nearly 50% sugar), I decided the 190gr / 6.75 oz. glass was "enough".

500 gr / 1.1 lb. mascarpone

300 (200) gr / 10.6 (7) oz. (Italian) lady fingers I got the original Italian ones which are mostly used for making tiramisu, and which are more Men's fingers in size then ladies' ALSO: they were so big that I had to break them into smaller pieces to use them.

100 gr / 3.5 oz. chopped pistachios


– a DEEP 20 x 25 cm / 7.9 x 9.9 in casserole dish




WE DO

1. Make / Get the espresso, fill it into a small but wide bowl, and let it cool to room temperature.

Since I don't have an espresso machine, I had it freshly-made at my town's Italian deli where I also got lady fingers and pistachio cream. But German measuring and Italian cooking/baking... until I had convinced them I needed exact THAT amount of espresso which I would take home with me in my thermo coffee cup.


Shell the pistachios and chop them coarsely in the food processor.

Most of my "prolonged" prep time went into this. In my defense, I tried to get chopped ones but they were out ALSO: shall you encounter the same problem as I, blitz the nuts in 2-3 batches, otherwise they rather become pistachio flour than bits


2. In a BIG measuring jug, beat cream + sugar at the highest level with a hand mixer until frothy. My 1 liter / ~4 cups measuring jug wasn't big enough and halfway through, I had to transfer the mass to my mixing bowl. Add mascarpone + pistachio cream and mix them in at low level until you have a smooth, creamy mass.



3. Distribute a layer of pistachio-mascarpone-cream on your casserole dish's bottom –enough to only just cover it. Dip about half of the lady fingers into the espresso so that they're wholly drenched but NOT so soaked that they disintegrate –that might take some practicing, sorry–, and put them onto the cream layer.

4. Distribute half of the remaining cream on them, and sprinkle with 40gr / 1.5 oz. of the chopped pistachios. Dip the remaining lady fingers into the espresso, put them on top, and spread the remaining cream on top.


For each cream layer use a spatula for "smoothing"


5. Cover the dish and put it into the fridge for at least 30 minutes so the aromas can come together and the cream set. I let it rest overnight as I was finished when I didn't want to eat something so heavy anymore.


6. Before serving, sprinkle the remaining chopped pistachios onto the tiramisu.


7. Enjoy cold.


Buon Appetito & Guten Hunger!