If you have a good blender then there is no need to buy pistachio paste: cook your ice-cream base, pour it while still hot in the blender, add the whole pistachio nuts and blend at full speed for 15-20 minutes (if your blender risks overheating, then run it 5 minutes, stop it 2 minutes, run it again a couple of times). The amount of liquids in an ice-cream recipe allows you to get a smooth result. And you get a nice green color.
Personally I would suggest to look for Iranian pistachios, you can find high quality nuts for much cheaper prices than the Sicilian ones. Sicilian pistachios became a sort of a hoax, especially the one labelled as Bronte. If you sum up all the stuff that is sold as Bronte then you get an amount far superior than the one produced in the whole Sicily (Bronte is just a little subzone, few square miles, not the whole Sicily). I've been able to taste the top quality pistachios from Sicily (thanks to people living there) and from Iran (same), the Iranian ones were superior.
If you buy pistachio paste then read carefully the ingredients. Pure pistachio paste is never pure, it must have a little % of vegetable oil otherwise you can't get a paste from 100% pistachios (they don't have enough oil like hazelnuts). Avoid with all strength the sugared creams or similar products: you can be sure they used low quality nuts for those products.
Teo
