Name: Ice cream Luciano Heemstede - Aerdenhout
Address: Zandvoortselaan 177, Heemstede, 2106 AM, NL
Telephone: 023 583 0860
Price range: €€
Rating: 3.9

Netherlands

Heemstede

Ice cream Luciano Heemstede - Aerdenhout

Gelato al pistacchio is the flavour by which Italians judge a gelateria, because it cannot be faked cheaply: a proper one is made from a paste of roasted pistachios ground to oil, worked into a milk base, and it comes out a muted olive-khaki colour rather than the bright green of the almond-and-colouring versions sold by the beach. The reference nut is the pistachio of Bronte, grown on the lava slopes of Etna in Sicily, harvested in alternate years and sold at several times the price of Iranian or Californian nuts, which is why the word "Bronte" on a gelateria sign is either a mark of seriousness or a lie. Sicily is also where pistachio gelato is most at home, eaten in a brioche col tuppo for breakfast in Catania and Palermo, but it is on the counter of every gelateria in Italy and is usually the best-selling flavour after chocolate and hazelnut.

The paste is the whole job. Pistachios are lightly roasted, sometimes with a fraction of their skins left on for flavour, and ground in a stone mill or refiner until the oil releases and the mass turns to a thick, pourable cream; a few producers add a small percentage of almond to smooth it, and any more than that is adulteration. The base is milk, a little cream, sugar and often a small amount of dextrose or skim-milk powder to hold texture, pasteurised, cooled and left to mature for several hours before the paste is blended in at between eight and twelve percent by weight. It is then churned in a batch freezer to about minus twelve degrees and served from a pozzetto or a covered tub at a temperature where it is dense but spreadable. No egg is traditional in the Sicilian version, and the flavour should not need vanilla.

Colour is the first test: a pale greenish-brown with visible dark flecks is right, a vivid green is not, and a grey-beige one has usually been made with too much almond. The taste should be of roasted nut, faintly salty and slightly bitter at the finish, with the milk in the background and the sugar below the point where it coats the palate; the texture should be dense and smooth, melting slowly on the tongue, with no ice crystals and no gumminess. Mark down any pistachio gelato that tastes of marzipan, which means almond paste or artificial flavouring, a product sitting in tall fluffy mounds above the rim of the tub, which means it has been whipped with air and stabilisers, a greasy film in the mouth from too much vegetable fat, and chopped nuts scattered on top to suggest a content the gelato itself does not deliver.

Gelato al pistacchio

Another sunny day in Netherlands and of course i went for an ice cream.

This time i tried pistachio with salted caramel together. Pretty nice and solid taste.
But there are better ice creams in here.

The real pistachios inside the ice cream was a really nice touch.

Ice cream Luciano Heemstede - Aerdenhout

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