Why it works: Olive and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Salted Pecans
Ingredients
Directions
Heat olive oil in a small saucepan.
Add pecan nut meats and stir constantly until heated and crisp.
Remove nuts with a spoon or skimmer to brown paper, minimizing oil transfer.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
If necessary, wipe nuts with cheese cloth to remove excess salt.
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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Olive + meattop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,485 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
- Pecan nut meats
- Form the crisp, crunchy body of the snack once briefly fried in oil.
- Olive oil
- Carries heat to the nuts, crisping their surface while adding richness.
The step that matters
Removing the nuts from the oil. Lifting the pecans out as soon as they are heated and crisp prevents them from overcooking and turning bitter. Draining them on brown paper removes surface oil, which keeps them from tasting greasy and helps the salt stick.
“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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