Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Salted Almonds
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Blanch the almonds and dry them.
Spread the almonds on a pan and add the butter.
Roast and salt
Stir on the stove until the almonds are greasy.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until pale yellow, stirring often.
Once cooled, sift the salt over the almonds and shake off any excess.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Almonds
- Provide the crunchy body and nutty flavor that the butter and salt season.
- Butter
- Coats the almonds so the salt adheres and the nuts toast more evenly.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the surface of the nuts, adding savory flavor that sharpens their sweetness.
The step that matters
Baking until pale yellow. Almonds keep browning from their residual heat after leaving the oven, so stirring often and removing them at pale yellow prevents bitterness from over-toasting. Pulling them slightly early preserves a light, nutty flavor.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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