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Dessert

Salt Almonds

Roasted almonds seasoned with coarse sea salt and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Salt Almonds

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them.

  2. Let them stand for a few minutes, then drain.

  3. Rinse the almonds with cold water.

  4. Remove the skins.

  5. Dry them on a clean towel.

Season and bake

  1. Place the almonds in a shallow pan.

  2. Sprinkle liberally with coarse sea salt.

  3. Add pieces of butter, about the size of your fingertip, spaced closely together.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  5. Watch carefully and shake often until they are evenly light brown.

  6. If there is too much salt, place the almonds in a clean towel and rub them.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 crunchy body of the snack and brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the almonds brown evenly in the oven.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the almonds and gives a contrasting savory flavor against their sweetness.

The step that matters

Watching the bake and shaking often. Almonds go from light brown to burnt quickly because their oils and sugars darken fast at high heat. Shaking them turns the nuts so they colour evenly, and checking often catches them before the edges scorch.

“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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