Pistachios

The pistachio nut is a fruit of great category and is as much appreciated for its consumption in fresh as for the industry.

Pistachios are more and more consumed salted or roasted, and with shell as a snack. The seed in raw is used as an ingredient for many dishes, in confectionery and cooked pork meats or ice creams. A very sweet oil is also obtained from pistachios. They are even applied as an ingredient for some medicines with digestive action and in cosmetics.

It is a very nutritious dry fruit of great fat content, between 30.5 and 51,6g for 100g of edible fresh weight.

The pistachio, whose edible part is the seed or almond, covered by a hard, thin, clear brown shell named pericarp. It is obtained from the so called pistachio or mastic tree. The almond is elongated, slightly triangular, 2-3cm long, tender, oily and with a pale green or yellow colour.

The pistachio nuts with shell can be preserved frozen for several months, although they may loose aroma and if they are peeled, it is recommended to keep them in the fridge, although the time of preservation is smaller in this case.

There are some varieties or types of pistachio that are distinguished by the size and colour of the almond, having greater or smaller acceptance.

The tree of the pistachio does not bear fruit until the fifth year and it does not reach a good performance until the tenth. For this reason, in Spain this fruit is usually imported and the prices of the market are high. In the Mediterranean coast, they ripen in September but we can find them in the market all the year round.