Tag: pine nuts

Pignoli Cookies

Pignoli Cookies

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Pignoli cookies are the Italian version of macaroons with the addition of pine nuts. They originated in Sicily but are very popular in the US in Italian bakeries. The cookies can be eaten throughout the year but are mostly served at Christmas time since they can be quite expensive to make or buy because of what goes in them, pine nuts, or pignoli, and almond paste.

Pine nuts can usually be found at a grocery store in the baking aisle along with other nuts. They are actually the nuts of pine cones, so you would think they would be cheap, but, unfortunately, they are not easy to harvest. They only grow in the northern hemisphere and can take up to 3 years to mature. Once they are harvested from the pine cones, they need to be cracked open from an inner shell. It’s not an easy task – I did it many years ago while I was in the pineta of Selvacava, a large pine forest up in the mountains in Aurunci National Park. I remember having to smash each individual nut with a big rock!

Make sure to use almond paste and not marzipan nor almond pastry filling in this recipe because they are all different. Almond paste is made of ground up almonds with a little bit of sugar and is very gritty. It is not very sweet and needs to be mixed with other ingredients to be used as a filling. I personally like to use Solo almond paste, but you can find many other brands in the grocery store or online.

Almond Paste

Almond Paste


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Ingredients (yield: 3 dozen)
12 oz almond paste
½ c granulated sugar
1 c confectioners’ sugar
4 egg whites
1 ½ c pine nuts (pignoli)
1 T of flour if the dough is too soft

1. Preheat oven to 325 °F (165 degrees C).
2. Line 2 cookie sheets with foil; lightly grease foil.
3. Mix almond paste and granulated sugar in food processor until smooth. Add confectioners’ sugar and 2 egg whites; process until smooth.
4. Whisk remaining 2 egg whites in small bowl.
5. Place pine nuts on shallow plate.
6. With lightly floured hands roll dough into 1” balls. If the dough feels too sticky, add a tablespoon of flour. Coat balls in egg whites, shaking off excess, then roll in pine nuts, pressing lightly to stick. Arrange balls on cookie sheets, and flatten slightly to form a 1 ½ “ round.
7. Bake 15 to 18 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned. Let stand on cookie sheet 1 minute. Transfer to wire rack to cool. Sprinkle confectioners’ sugar over them before serving. Store them in an airtight container.

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Pesto sauce

Pesto Sauce

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I love pesto sauce so much I can eat it on Italian bread as a spread! The scent of basil reminds me of when I was little. My family and I lived in an apartment so we didn’t have a garden, but that didn’t stop my parents from planting herbs and vegetables in buckets and keeping them out on the fire escape during the summer. When they finally bought a house, basil was one of the first things they planted, along with tomatoes of course.

Pesto sauce is made with lots of fresh basil, although I’ve seen recipes substituting some of the basil with spinach and parsley to give it that nice green color. The basil in pesto will actually change to a brownish color after a short time because of oxidation (when certain substances react to being exposed to oxygen), but you can drop the leaves in a pot of boiling water for a few seconds to destroy the enzymes that cause it (read Why does my pesto turn brown?)

It also calls for pignoli, or pine nuts, which can be expensive so I usually leave them out and the sauce still has a wonderful, aromatic flavor.  And for the best flavor, I always use extra virgin olive oil. My favorite unfortunately cannot be bought here because it is made in my father’s town, Selvacava.

I like to use the food processor to mix the ingredients, but traditionally it’s made using a mortar and pestle.

Ingredients

1 clove of garlic
3 T of grated pecorino romano or parmiggiano reggiano
1 T pine nuts
50 leave of basil, rinsed and dried
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
a pinch of salt

  1. in a food processor, add garlic, cheese and pine nuts and mix until it is a paste.
  2. add basil and salt and mix.
  3. slowly add the olive oil.

If you do not use it right away, the oil will separate from the rest of the ingredients so you have to stir it before adding it to anything.

I like to make a lot of pesto and freeze it because I don’t always have the time to prepare it just before I use it.

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