Why it works: Almond and syrup work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 746 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Orgeat Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pound the sweet and bitter almonds very fine with some water.
Boil 2 quarts of syrup until it reaches the blow stage.
Make and store
Mix the ground almonds into the boiling syrup.
Stir continuously over the heat until the mixture becomes very stiff.
Once cooled, transfer to pots and cover with paper tied with a bladder.
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 + syruptop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together746 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet almonds
- Provides the main almond flavor and oil that gives the mixture body and richness.
- Bitter almonds
- Adds a stronger, aromatic almond flavor in small amount.
- Syrup
- Supplies sweetness and the liquid base, thickening as it is boiled and mixed with the almonds.
The step that matters
Stir continuously over the heat. Once the boiling syrup is combined with the ground almonds, constant stirring keeps the mixture from scorching on the base of the pan, since sugar darkens and burns quickly at high heat while it thickens.
“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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