Why it works: Almond and peanut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry acetylpyrazine, which smells roast. The science ↓
Salt Nuts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Blanch almonds by boiling them in water until the skins slip off easily.
Heat the konut or lard until hot.
Fry and season
Add the almonds and peanuts to the hot fat, ensuring they are well covered.
Fry the nuts until they are a light brown.
Strain the nuts.
Salt to taste.
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 + peanuttop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together305 recipes
Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Konut or lard
- Hot fat conducts heat evenly, browning and crisping the nuts while adding richness.
- Almonds
- Main nut; blanching removes the skins so they fry to an even, crisp texture.
- Peanuts
- Main nut that fries to a crisp, toasty crunch in the hot fat.
The step that matters
Fry the nuts until light brown. Nuts keep cooking from their own residual heat after leaving the fat, so they can darken and turn bitter if left too long. Removing them at light brown lets carryover heat finish them to a crisp, even colour.
“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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