Burnt sugar and fingers: Madame Thermomix’s Pistachio Crème brûlée

Snap, crunch, throw. Snap, crunch, Throw. Men in cafés in warm climates methodically open beige shells, pop out their green- and red-tinged treasure and discard the empty holders. Snap, crunch, throw. Snap, crunch, throw. I sit at the table, drink in hand, shelling pistachio after pistachio and greedily consuming the delicate nuts, taunting me in their half-opened state. Several smooth ovoids in the ever lessening pile cannot be opened for love or money and a hammer is not within reach. My frustration grows so I finish those that offer themselves up to me. One last sip, one last crunch. I am satisfied.

Flash back ten years. As Chef Proprietor of Le Bistro du Lac in Raymond, Maine, USA, every day I whisk egg yolks, cream, sugar and vanilla to make crème brûlée which I painstakingly bake in the oven for 40 minutes in a bain marie. As dessert orders come to the pass, I coat the tops with sugar and, jauntily brandishing my industrial blow torch, I caramelise the dessert into a delightful contrast of cold custard and hot caramel. But I am rushing and nearly drop the dish, my thumb dipping into the red-hot caramel which sticks to my skin. I sit with my thumb in ice water for three days.

Pistachios. Crème brûlée. Pistachios. Crème brûlée. Pistachio crème brûlée. What a phenomenal idea! I wish I had had it myself but someone has beaten me to it. Never mind. I shall make up my own Thermomix recipe and see how it goes.

Madame Thermomix’s Pistachio Crème brûlée
Based on recipe and procedure from “Fast and Easy Cooking” by Janie Turner, the 300-recipe cookbook that accompanies every purchase of a Thermomix TM31 from UK Thermomix
Serves 8

Ingredients
100 g shelled pistachios
400 g double/heavy cream
50 g granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 extra large/jumbo eggs or 8 extra large/jumbo yolks, at room temperature
sugar for the topping (you can use brown sugar, caster sugar or golden granulated sugar; I find they all work equally well)

Method

1. Weigh the pistachios into the Thermomix bowl. Grind on Speed 10 until fine, about 4 seconds (you’ll hear it)
2. Blend at Speed 8 until it becomes a paste. (Watch through the hole in the lid, it’s amazing!)
3. Add the other ingredients (except the topping sugar) and mix 1 minute/Speed 3. Scrape the bottom of the bowl with the spatula to release any pistachio butter into the mixture. Blend 1 minute/Speed 10.
4. Cook 16 minutes/90° C/Speed 3 until nice and thick. (So much quicker than 40 minutes in the oven in a messy bain marie!)
5. Pour out immediately into individual ramekins or one large shallow dish. Cool to room temperature and then chill in the refrigerator. Just before serving, cover the surface with sugar and caramelise with a blow torch or under a hot grill/broiler.

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The Thermomix works brilliantly for this recipe. It saves more than half the time of the manual method, and removes the need for the bain marie and oven which my clumsy self finds rather risky at times. The Thermomix grinds the pistachios so fine the resulting mixture is smooth and delightful – and green!

Bon appétit !

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