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Orgeat Paste

A paste of pounded almonds and sugar, diluted with water to make orgeat, an almond-flavoured drink.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Orgeat Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Pound the blanched almonds with a little water to prevent them from turning to oil.

  2. Add the pounded sugar and mix into a paste.

Dilute to use

  1. To use, mix a piece the size of an egg with 1 pint of spring water and strain through a napkin.

English method

  1. For the English method, boil the common syrup until it reaches the blow stage.

  2. Mix the almonds into the syrup over heat, stirring constantly until it forms a stiff paste.

Store

  1. Allow to cool and store in pots for later use.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Almond + syruptop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together746 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Provide the main body, fat and almond flavour of the paste.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and helps bind the crushed almonds into a paste.
Common syrup
Sweetens and thickens the almonds into a stiff paste when heated in the English method.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds with a little water. Almonds are very oily, and crushing them dry can release that oil, leaving a greasy, separated paste. A little water keeps the oil dispersed so the paste stays smooth and cohesive.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.