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Devilled Almonds

Blanch almonds, fry in oil, mix with chutney, sauce, pepper, salt, serve hot on fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,875 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Devilled Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the almonds and cut each into four pieces.

Fry and season

  1. Fry the almonds in olive oil until golden.

  2. Mix the fried almonds with chutney, Harvey Sauce, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot on small rounds of fried bread.

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 + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sauce + olivetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Almond + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 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

Almonds
Provide the crunchy, nutty base that the frying and seasoning build on.
Olive oil
Fries the almonds, carrying heat evenly so they turn golden and crisp.
Harvey sauce or worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, salty, tangy depth to the coated almonds.
Chutney
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the salty and spiced flavours.

The step that matters

Fry the almonds until golden. Almonds darken quickly once their sugars and proteins begin to brown, so they can turn bitter if left too long. Pulling them at golden keeps them crisp and sweet-nutty, and the residual heat keeps browning going slightly after they leave the oil.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, olive, 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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