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Almonds, Salted

Salted almonds are toasted in oil and seasoned with celery salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Almonds, Salted

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the almonds

  1. Heat the salad oil in a pan.

  2. Fry the almonds in the oil until nicely browned.

  3. Drain the almonds well.

Season and serve

  1. Toss the almonds in a sheet of strong paper with celery salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Serve in small fancy paper cases.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Almond + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Almond + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,566 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

Almonds
Main ingredient that becomes crisp and nutty when fried until browned.
Salad oil
Fries the almonds, carrying heat evenly so they brown and crisp.
Celery salt
Seasons the almonds with a savoury, salty flavour after frying.

The step that matters

Fry the almonds until nicely browned. Almonds keep darkening from residual heat after leaving the oil, so they can turn bitter if overcooked. Pull them at a light golden-brown and drain well so they stay crisp.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, pepper):

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, pepper. 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.

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