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Salad

Salted Almonds

Salted almonds are toasted almonds seasoned with olive oil and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare and bake

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Place them in a shallow pan and drizzle with olive oil.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven, shaking often to prevent burning.

Finish

  1. Once delicately browned, remove from the oven and drain on brown paper.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

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
Provide the crunchy body and nutty flavor that develops as they brown.
Olive oil
Coats the almonds so they brown evenly and take on a crisp, rich texture.
Coarse sea salt
Adds savory seasoning on the surface, which is the defining flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Shaking and removing at delicate browning. Nuts go from golden to bitter within minutes. Browning comes from Maillard reactions and sugar caramelization, which speed up as the almonds darken. Shaking exposes every side to heat, and pulling them at a light golden color stops the cooking before the nut oils and sugars scorch.

“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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