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Almond Paste— Orgeat Paste

A sweet almond paste made with sweet and bitter almonds, sugar, and orange‑flower water or lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Paste— Orgeat Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Soak the almonds in clean cold water for a day to preserve their whiteness.

  3. Dry the almonds with a cloth.

Pound the paste

  1. Pound the almonds finely in a mortar, adding orange-flower water or lemon juice to prevent oiling.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Make up most of the paste, giving its bulk, richness and smooth texture.
Bitter almonds
Add a stronger, more pungent almond aroma to the paste.
Sugar
Sweetens the paste and adds body to the finished mixture.

The step that matters

Pounding with orange-flower water or lemon juice. Almonds are rich in oil, and grinding them finely can release it so the paste turns greasy and separates. A splash of liquid helps the oil stay dispersed, keeping the paste smooth and cohesive.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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