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 ↓
Salted Almonds
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them; let stand for 3 minutes.
Drain and cover the almonds with cold water.
Remove the skins and dry the almonds on a towel.
Fry and salt
Fry the almonds in hot butter.
Drain on paper and sprinkle with coarse sea 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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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
- Provide the main body of the snack; blanching loosens skins so they can be removed.
- Butter
- Fries the almonds, carrying heat evenly and adding richness and browning.
The step that matters
Frying the almonds in hot butter. Almonds are dry and brown quickly once their moisture is gone. If the almonds are dried thoroughly before frying, they fry rather than steam, and they can scorch quickly if the butter is too hot or they are left unattended.
“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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