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Salad

Salted Almonds

Salted almonds are almonds that have been boiled, peeled, soaked, fried, salted, and optionally drained of grease.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Cover the almonds with boiling water and let them stand for a few minutes to loosen the skins.

  2. Pour cold water over the almonds to cool them, then slip off the skins.

  3. Soak the almonds in ice cold water for 10 minutes to make them crisp.

  4. Dry the almonds with a cloth and heat the lard or olive oil in a deep pan.

Fry and season

  1. Fry the almonds until they are a delicate brown, then remove them with a skimmer.

  2. Drain the almonds in a colander and sprinkle dry salt over them.

  3. If the almonds are greasy, fold them in a clean cloth to absorb the grease.

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
Their skins loosen in boiling water and they brown and crisp when fried.
Fresh lard or pure olive oil
Frying fat that cooks the almonds evenly and carries heat to brown them.

The step that matters

Frying the almonds until a delicate brown. Frying continues to cook the almonds after they leave the oil, and they darken quickly. Removing them at the right color keeps them crisp and 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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