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 ↓
Roasted Almonds
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place the almonds in a saucepan with salt.
Roast and brown
Roast the almonds in the oven until hot.
Remove the saucepan from the oven and add butter.
Shake the almonds over low heat until browned, being careful not to burn them.
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 main body of the dish, and roasting turns their raw flavor nutty and crisp.
- Butter
- Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the almonds brown evenly.
The step that matters
Shake the almonds over low heat until browned. Almond skins and sugars brown quickly and then scorch. Low heat and constant shaking spread the heat evenly, so the almonds color without turning bitter.
“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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