Parisian Nougats

Ingredients required:—Eight ounces of pistachio-kernels, four ounces of sugar, and one stick of vanilla. Scald the pistachios; remove the skins; absorb all the moisture by gently rubbing them in a napkin; then split each kernel into halves, and put them to dry on a baking-sheet in the screen; pound the vanilla with one ounce of sugar; sift it, and then put this and the four ounces of pounded sugar into a small sugar-boiler, together with a teaspoonful of the prepared extract of cochineal.

Stir these over the stove-fire with a wooden spoon until the sugar is entirely melted, and as soon as it begins to purl on the surface, immediately add the pistachios, and gently mix the whole together, taking care not to bruise the pistachios. The nougat must now be spread out in the form of a square, on a baking-sheet or marble slab (previously oiled), to the thickness of about the eighth part of an inch; some roughly-broken granite sugar should be strewed over the surface, and before it becomes cold, the square must be divided into two bands, and then again each of these cut into about a dozen small oblong nougats: when about to send to table, pile them up in close circular rows on a napkin, and serve.