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 ↓
Salted or Roasted Almonds
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Remove the skins from the almonds by plunging them into boiling water.
Mix the almonds with melted butter and salt.
Bake
Spread them in a baking pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes, stirring often.
They should be golden brown when done.
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 main body of the snack and brown during roasting to develop a nutty flavour.
- Melted butter
- Coats the almonds so they roast evenly and take on a rich flavour and browning.
- Salt
- Seasons the almonds and sharpens their roasted, nutty flavour.
The step that matters
Bake until golden brown, stirring often. Almonds go from golden to dark brown quickly in a hot oven, and the sugars and proteins in their skins can scorch. Stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps them from burning before the centres are roasted.
“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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