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Drink

Almond Water

A drink made by blanching almonds, grinding them into paste, simmering with syrup, and diluting with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,465 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds by immersing them in hot water to remove the peels.

  2. Pound the almonds in a marble mortar with a little rose water or orange-flower water to prevent them from oiling.

Make the almond water

  1. In a saucepan, combine the syrup and the almond paste, and let it simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add water to taste.

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 + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Rose + syruptop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together167 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body of the drink.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper, more intense almond aroma in small amounts.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and body to the liquid base.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds with rose water or orange-flower water. Adding a little liquid while pounding keeps the almond fats from separating and releasing oil, which would make the drink greasy and cloudy rather than smooth.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rose, syrup):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, 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.

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