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Dessert

To Salt Almonds

A simple preparation of blanched almonds tossed with butter and coarse sea salt, then roasted until golden.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Shell and blanch the almonds.

  2. Spread them out on a bright tin pie dish.

  3. Add a piece of butter and stir well.

Bake and salt

  1. Place in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden brown.

  2. Remove from the oven and stir them around.

  3. Dredge quickly with coarse sea salt and let cool.

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
The main ingredient; toasting in the oven turns them golden and nutty.
Butter
Coats the nuts so they brown evenly and carry flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the nuts and adds salty contrast to their sweetness.

The step that matters

Dredge quickly with salt. Salt sticks to the oily surface while the nuts are still hot. Waiting lets the coating cool and set, so the salt falls off and seasons unevenly.

“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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