Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Fresh Orgeat or Almond-Milk
Ingredients
Directions
Make the milk
Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds until very fine.
Add the quart of water and mix well.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.
Sweeten and serve
If desired, add syrup or pounded sugar and orange flower water.
Serve immediately or refrigerate for later use.
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.
-
Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,125 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Almond + syruptop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together746 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Syrup + orangetop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,179 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet almonds
- Provide the fat and protein that form the body and creamy flavour of the milk.
- Bitter almonds
- Add a sharp, intense almond aroma that balances the sweetness.
- Water
- Extracts flavour and suspends the ground almonds to make a pourable liquid.
- Syrup or pounded sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the nutty, slightly bitter almond flavour.
The step that matters
Pound the almonds until very fine. Fine grinding exposes more of the almond's fat and solids to the water, so more flavour and body pass into the milk. Coarse pieces leave the milk gritty and weak, and the sieve cannot fully remove them.
Swap the orange
The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, syrup):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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.
More almond milk recipes
You might also like
Orange Syrup47 recipes
Orange Water Ice28 recipes
Orgeat Syrup13 recipes
Simple Syrup13 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.