Why it works: Milk and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,800 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Almond Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the farina base
Mix the farina with a little cold milk.
Boil the rest of the milk and pour it over the farina, stirring carefully.
Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, then remove it from the heat.
Add the almonds
Blanch and pound the almonds, then rub them through a sieve.
Add the almond paste to the warm farina mixture, ensuring it is not boiling.
Let the saucepan sit off the heat for 30 minutes without boiling.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,800 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Gluten farina
- Thickens the milk into a soup with a smooth, body-giving texture as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the farina swells in and thickens.
- Jordan almonds
- Provide the main almond flavour and body once pounded into a paste.
The step that matters
Adding the almond paste off the boil. Boiling the mixture after the almonds go in can cause it to curdle or scorch and turn grainy. Keeping it warm but not boiling lets the starch stay smooth and the flavour blend in evenly.
“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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