Oh Wise, All-Knowing Lab Board, How The Heck do You Shell Pistachios?
I have discovered Garlic Scape Pesto. It calls for pistachios. It's SO GOOD I've made four batches. Thank you neighbour who grows garlic and gave me scapes in trade for hostas. But, no kidding, my right index finger and left thumb are sore and there's blood under both nails where pulling the darn shells apart pulled my nail away from the digit. Only 1/3 cup pistachios per recipe too, but now I've shelled enough for one and 1/3 cups.
Bulk Barn has shelled pistachios but the darn things are more than twice the price of unshelled ones. Probably they hire slave labour to shell them the same way I did. They were not roasted or salted and since that's what I used first and it was SO GOOD I thought it better not to change. But is there a trick to shelling them?
Here's the recipe I followed, added nearly all the juice of half a lemon as per my friend who told me about garlic scape pesto in the first place. If you try this, I did the water thing with the 2/3 cup of pesto but I think next time I'll skip the water and put all the pesto on the spaghetti. We had pesto on baked potatoes last night and tonight, YUMMMMMMMM. :)
Pasta with Garlic-Scape Pesto recipe | Epicurious.com