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Salted Almonds

Roasted almonds coated with olive oil and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,875 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salted Almonds

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them.

  2. Let them sit for 2 minutes, then transfer to cold water and rub off the brown skin.

  3. Dry the blanched almonds with a cloth.

  4. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of olive oil over each cup of nuts and let them stand for 2 hours.

Season and bake

  1. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt over each cup of nuts and mix thoroughly.

  2. Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown and crisp.

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 + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,875 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
The main ingredient, whose skins are removed and which turn golden and crisp when baked.
Olive oil
Coats the nuts so the salt sticks and the surface browns evenly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown and crisp. Almonds darken quickly near the end of baking, and they keep firming as they cool. Pulling them when golden, rather than waiting for deep color, prevents a bitter, burnt taste.

“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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