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Salt Almonds

Roasted almonds seasoned with butter 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: Butter and almond 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Melt the butter in a baking pan until hot.

Bake and cool

  1. Add the almonds and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Bake until the almonds are a delicate brown and the salt adheres.

  3. Pour the almonds onto a sieve and let them cool.

  4. Serve cold on a small dish.

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. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 crunchy, nutty body that the salt and light browning are applied to.
Butter
Coats the almonds and carries the salt, helping them take on color and flavor in the oven.
Coarse sea salt
Adds savory seasoning on the surface, adhering to the warm buttered almonds.

The step that matters

Bake until a delicate brown. Baking to a delicate brown develops nutty, toasted flavor through browning reactions. Going much further can scorch the almonds and make them bitter, while stopping too early leaves them pale and flat.

“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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