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To Salt Almonds

A simple preparation of almonds toasted with butter and salted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

To Salt Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Shell the almonds and scald them to remove the skins.

Roast

  1. Melt the butter in a pan in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Dry the almonds and add them to the melted butter, stirring and turning until they are golden brown.

  3. Sprinkle salt over the almonds and let them cool.

  4. Rub off the excess salt before serving.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Form the crunchy, nutty body of the snack and brown to a golden colour in the butter.
Butter
Carries heat evenly around the almonds and helps them brown while adding richness.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the outside of the almonds and gives a salty bite that contrasts with their sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the almonds in the butter until golden brown. Almonds can go from golden to burnt quickly. Constant turning keeps heat even, so they brown evenly without darkening in spots or tasting bitter.

“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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