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Salt Almonds

Roasted almonds seasoned with butter and 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 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 ↓

Salt Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cover the almonds with boiling water and let them stand for five minutes.

  2. Remove the skins from the almonds.

  3. Place the almonds in cold water.

  4. Dry them thoroughly with a clean towel.

Cook

  1. In a clean pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the almonds to the pan.

  3. Sprinkle with salt, shaking constantly until they turn a delicate brown.

Cool

  1. Transfer the almonds to waxed paper.

  2. Let them cool and dry.

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 + buttertop 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 main body and crunch of the snack, browning in the butter to develop nutty flavor.
Butter
Conducts heat evenly around the almonds and carries flavor, helping them brown gently.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the outside of the almonds and contrasts with their sweet, toasted flavor.

The step that matters

Shaking constantly while the almonds brown. Moving the almonds keeps them from sitting on one hot spot, so they brown evenly. Standing still can scorch some almonds while others stay pale.

“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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