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
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Blanch the almonds.
Toast and season
Melt the butter in a tin pan on the stove without browning it.
Add the almonds to the melted butter and stir to coat.
Place the pan in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown, stirring occasionally until they are a nice light brown.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle the salt over the almonds, stirring thoroughly.
Transfer the almonds to white or yellow paper to absorb excess grease.
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 crunchy body of the snack and take on the browning and flavor of the butter.
- Butter
- Carries heat evenly to the almonds and coats them so the salt sticks.
- Coarse sea salt
- Adds the salty flavor on the surface of the browned almonds.
The step that matters
Browning the almonds in the oven. Butter browns quickly once its milk solids start to toast, so stirring often and stopping at a light brown keeps the almonds from scorching and tasting 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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