Why it works: Sugar and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Grilled Almonds
Ingredients
Directions
Boil sugar and water in a saucepan until the syrup threads.
Add blanched almonds and cook for 5 minutes, stirring carefully.
Remove from heat and stir until the syrup crystallizes and clings to the almonds.
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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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and, as it cooks into syrup and then crystallizes, forms the crisp coating on the almonds.
- Blanched almonds
- Form the crunchy base that the sugar syrup coats and clings to.
The step that matters
Stir the syrup off the heat until it crystallizes. Stirring after removing the pan from heat encourages fine, even sugar crystals, giving a sandy, opaque coating. Stirring at the wrong moment or for too long can make the coating grainy or clumped instead of an even layer on the almonds.
“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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