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To Blanch and to Pound Almonds

This recipe describes blanching almonds in water, peeling, drying, and pounding them into a paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

To Blanch and to Pound Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Blanch and peel

  1. Place almonds in a saucepan with plenty of cold water and heat slowly until just scalding.

  2. Transfer almonds to a basin, peel them, and place in cold water as you finish peeling.

  3. Dry almonds well with a soft cloth before use.

  4. For easier pounding, dry almonds in a warm room for 2-3 days on a large dish.

Pound

  1. Chop almonds roughly, then use a rolling pin to pound them into a smooth paste, adding a few drops of cold water, egg white, or lemon juice as needed.

  2. If using a board, ensure it is higher in the middle; for sweet dishes, sprinkle pounded sugar underneath.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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 rich flavour of the paste once blanched and pounded.
Cold water
Helps the almonds form a smooth paste without becoming oily during pounding.

The step that matters

Heating the almonds until just scalding. Heating slowly only until the skins loosen lets them slip off easily. Overheating cooks the almonds, making the skins hard to remove and the nuts softer and less fresh-tasting.

“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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