Pantry
Peanut butter
Also called ground peanut paste, unsweetened peanut butter
Ground roasted peanuts, oil and sometimes sugar and salt. For kare-kare and satay-style sauces you want the unsweetened kind, not a child’s sandwich spread.
Origin
A modern pantry product with older ground-peanut sauces behind it in West Africa and Southeast Asia. The Filipino stew use is a specific savoury application of the jar.
Flavour
Roasted peanut, oily, with a bitter edge if the nuts were dark. Sweetened jars taste of icing.
How it is made
Roasted peanuts are milled until the oil releases. Stabilised jars keep the oil mixed; natural jars float an oil layer. Some are fully hydrogenated and never move.
How to use it
Loosen peanut butter with a little warm broth before it hits a stew, or it seizes into lumps. For kare-kare, fry aromatics, add the loosened paste, then vegetables and meat, and taste for salt. Unsweetened is the right start; add a pinch of sugar only if the sauce is harsh. Do not boil a peanut sauce hard or the oil splits. Smooth or crunchy is texture, not a flavour change. Stir the oil from a natural jar back in.
Storage
Pantry for stabilised jars; fridge after opening if the label is natural and your kitchen is warm. Rancid peanut butter smells of old oil paint.
Recipes using it
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