Pistachio-Date Energy Balls

If pecans-and-maple gives you a Southern-American dessert flavour profile, pistachios-and-cardamom takes you straight to the Eastern Mediterranean — Turkish delight, Iranian pastries, the spiced sweetness of Persian rosewater desserts. Same technique as the pecan balls (dates + nuts + binder, blitzed, rolled), completely different cultural territory.

The green is the visual hook. Ground pistachios have a vivid jade colour that survives blitzing in the food processor, and the second coat of ground pistachios on the outside is what gives these their distinctive look. The photo shows the colour exactly: bright green all over, with the dark date interior visible in the cut-open ball at the front. They look more sophisticated than they have any right to.

A note on the rose water: it's optional but transformative. ½ teaspoon is enough to add a floral note that you can't quite identify — it smells like "fancy" without smelling like soap. Without it, you get a straightforward pistachio-date-cardamom flavour, which is also good. If you want to skip it because you don't have it, the recipe still works.