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Dessert

Salt Almonds

Roasted almonds seasoned with butter and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salt Almonds

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Shell the almonds.

  2. Pour boiling water over the almonds and let them sit until the red skins slip off easily.

Season and bake

  1. Place the almonds on a baking sheet and rub them with butter.

  2. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the almonds, being careful not to over-salt.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until browned to your liking.

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 + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the main body of the snack, and their oils brown and toast in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the salt cling and promotes even browning and a richer flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the almonds and contrasts with their natural sweetness.

The step that matters

Sprinkling the salt. Salt is applied before baking and the almonds are then browned, so too much salt can make the finished nuts taste harsh and overly salty. Measured, even sprinkling gives a balanced seasoning.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Brazil nutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter. 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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