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 placing them in boiling water for a few moments.
Remove the hulls and dry the nuts.
Toast
Melt the butter in a long flat tin over medium heat.
Add the almonds to the tin and sprinkle with a little salt.
Stir often and watch carefully to prevent over-browning.
Once browned, remove from heat and place on paper to absorb excess fat.
Finish
Sprinkle well with salt before serving.
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 snack and brown to give a nutty, toasted flavor.
- Butter
- Provides fat that conducts heat evenly and helps the almonds brown and taste rich.
The step that matters
Stirring and watching the browning. Nuts keep browning from residual heat after leaving the pan, and sugars and proteins on their surface darken quickly. Stirring often and removing them at the first golden stage prevents a bitter, burnt flavor.
“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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