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 ↓
Salt Almonds
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the almonds
Blanch the almonds in boiling water for 1 minute.
Transfer to cold water and rub off the skins.
In a bowl, combine the almonds with oil or melted butter and stir well.
Let the mixture stand for 1 hour.
Season and bake
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, using 1 tablespoon for each cup of nuts.
Spread the almonds in a clean baking pan.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), stirring until golden brown, about 15 minutes.
Remove when crisp.
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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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 base that toasting turns golden and aromatic.
- Oil or melted butter
- Coats the nuts so they brown evenly and carry the salt to the surface.
The step that matters
Bake until golden and stir often. Almonds go from golden to bitter within minutes. Stirring keeps them heating evenly, and they crisp further as they cool, so removing them when crisp is important.
“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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