Nigella and our new favourite cookies
The collective family sweet tooth is a difficult b*stard to satisfy. We like things that are a bit sweet, but too sweet and not a soul will touch them. A little chocolate is alright, but anything wholly chocolate will usually get very little attention. Baked fruits are mostly out, though forgivable with a home-made custard, and anything particularly fancy will be met with a modicum of hesitation and suspicion.
Is it any wonder that for dessert, we almost always resort to fresh fruit? (Has anyone had the citrus and grapes at the moment? OM-NOM-NOM-NOM! SO good!)
What this generally means is that I have to be quite wary when it comes to trying new sweet recipes, as if they don’t meet the familys fairly strict guidelines then most of the batch will have to be begged off onto friends for fear of going stale and having to be thrown out.
After chancing on a small packet of raw, shelled, UNSALTED pistachios at the local deli, I hurriedly bought a packet and brought it home, but was dismayed when I realized that I didn’t know what to do with the sods. A quick browse of the good ol’ trusty intarwebs yielded fairly unsatisfactory results, so I decided to dust off the somewhat neglected copy of “How to be a domestic goddess” on my cookbook shelf and see if Ms. Lawson had any wisdom to impart. Hoboy - did she ever!
A quick scan of the recipe index and my eyes spotted a promising recipe for some white chocolate and pistachio cookies, so I decided to give them a try, and I have to admit that the family have absolutely fallen in love! So much so, in fact, that a full batch of these cookies disappears in under a week, and they’ve been added to my ‘must make’ weekly baking roster. They’re a bit of work, especially if you don’t have easy access to peeled pistachios and ground pistachio meal, but the payoff is unbelievably worthwhile 
White Chocolate & Pistachio Cookies
(adapted by necessity from “How to be a domestic goddess” by Nigella Lawson)
Ingredients
100g unsalted butter, softened
125g caster sugar
100g soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
150g plain flour
1 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
125g white choc chips
250g raw unsalted pistachios, shelled and peeled if possible
DEALING WITH UNPEELED PISTACHIOS:
If you only have access to unpeeled pistachios, then you’ll need to remove the skins before progressing on with the recipe. Two reasons for this, getting rid of the brown papery skin will allow the beautiful waxy green of the nuts to shine through, plus the skin isn’t exactly tasty, and when ground will detract from the flavour of the nuts.First, put the nuts in a non-reactive bowl (glass or ceramic) then pour boiling water over the top and leave them to soak for about 10-15 minutes. Then drain the nuts and carefully pull off and discard the skins, setting the nuts aside for now. To dry out the now-soft nuts, preheat the oven to 100 degrees C and put the nuts in a single layer on a baking tray and dry out for about half an hour, giving them an occasional stir to prevent the bottoms from burning.
Remember, you want the nuts to be dry, not toasted, so if you see the nuts begin to colour, remove them from the oven, drop the temperature about 20 degrees and continue till the nuts are almost completely firm again.
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper and set aside. Sift together the flour and baking soda and also set aside.
2. Place 100g of shelled, peeled pistachios into a food processor with the caster sugar and pulse till you have a fine meal, then place the pistachio meal in a bowl. Pulse the remaining pistachios till roughly chopped, then place in a seperate bowl.
3. Cream the butter and brown sugar till soft and fluffy, then add the sugar/pistachio meal and beat well. Add the vanilla and egg and beat till combined, then beat in the flour. Once the dough is smooth and thick, add the chopped pistachio and white chocolate and mix to combine.
4. Pinch off tablespoons of dough and roll them into walnut-sized balls in your hands, then place them 10cm apart on a baking tray (they do a *lot* of spreading). Bake for 10-12 minutes, till the cookies are golden all over and a darker gold around the edges.
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for 10 minutes, then remove the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling down. Stored in a dry, airtight container, these cookies will last about a week, though depending on how many mouths are around, they may devoured in a much shorter time!
Technorati Tags: Nigella Lawson, cookies, pistachios, white chocolate, sweet, recipes
Others who have tried this recipe:
- Chris at Mele Cotte
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Comments
I think these will soon become my new favorite cookie, too! I just bought some pistachios for a salad and have some left over…these cookies were meant to be in my future!
love your banner and photos. these cookies sound delish! will have to wait because we have a butter shortage in Japan. 
i love, love, LOVE pistachios. the other day i tried pistachio ice cream for the first time, and it was NASTY. i don’t think there were any actual pistachios involved in making that particular batch, just icky artificial flavoring. disappointing, to be sure.
I haven’t tried these yet, but I’ll probably add it to my list of N recipes to make up…think the flecks of green are so pretty…
j
They look gorgeous, especially as I am a massive white chocolate fan (will be literally a massive fan if I keep eating the damn stuff…) HTBADG is a fantastic book, every time I pick it up I want to bake something.
Sounds like you have quite a difficult crowd to please, Ellie. You’re for sure onto a winner here though - Anyone who doesn’t like the white chocolate & pistachio combination is a nut!
A ‘nut’? Anyone? Come oooon!
These look amazing. I’m not a big white chocolate fan but wonder if dried cranberries wouldn’t make a tasty substitution. Delicious photos by the way.
mmmmm, they look so good! I’ve never tried this recipe but It’s now going on my "must bake" list 
Beautiful pictures xx
All dishes look very delicious. I am interested in the food culture of your country. And I support your site. If there is time, please come in my site. From Japan
http://food-soybean.blogspot.com/
Mandy - Ah well, it wasn’t too bad, just popped on a movie as I was doing it
Chris - They are pretty marvellous! Hopefully you have enough left over to make these cookies
Kat - Thanks babe! Hopefully the butter shortage won’t last too long!
Joy - They’re worth the effort
Grace - Me too I wouldn’t be surprised - I can’t wait to buy an ice cream maker so I can make my own pistachio ice cream!
Jasmine - The flecks of green are one of my favourite things about these cookies
Laura - LOL! Likewise, and I’m glad you share my love of this Nigella book
Graeme - Oy, don’t I know it! Thankfully I can usually tell whether something will get a good reception or not before I make it Good pun 
My Sweet and Saucy - Thanks
Jen - I bought them at a little local deli, but I surprisingly saw them in Coles yesterday, so try there In the health food aisle.
Patricia - I hope you do
Kevin - It’s heavenly!
Julia - I think cranberries would work quite nicely here, and the colourful berries would look great against the green pistachio
Vicky - Thanks babe
RecipeGirl - Ta hon
Nickki - Ta And I’d definitely call these a ‘must bake’
Edamame - Thank you.
Cakebrain - Cheers doll
Yay! I love nigella, and I am a huge fan of pistachio cookies too. I love how they give cookies an almost buttery flavor, and they’re so pretty too! I just made some pistachio cookies for the first time a few weeks ago, and now I’m a big advocate of using pistachios in cookies whenever possible!
Mmm I can’t believe I missed this recipe from Domestic Goddess. I must give this a try this week while I still have some pistachios! Did I mention how much I love your photography?
I tried these…an adapted of your adapted version. Yum! Really good - a keeper recipe. I will post about it later this week. Thanks so much!
So what’s the secret to keeping pistachios in the house without eating them all?
I’m afraid pistachios are amongst my favourites and they are so utterly delicious I have to pick at them until they’re all gone.
Sophie - Yay, more Nigella fans Pistachios are marvellous, I’m really looking forward to using them more often in my baking
Lorraine - It’s an easy one to miss as it’s one of those without a pretty picture to bring it to your attention
Chris - I look forward to reading it
Diane - There is none I’ve made these three times and each time I’ve bought the nuts the morning of the day that I was going to make them 
I have the same problem with pistachios, I find it hard to keep my hands off!
I am intrigued by the use of pistachio meal. And I am sorry that you have to do shell the pistachio yourself. I normally get the shelled ones. :p