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Peanut Puree

A creamy peanut puree made with milk, onion juice, peanuts, paprika, bay leaf, celery seed, cornstarch, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Peanut Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, combine 1 quart of milk, onion juice, pounded peanuts, paprika, bay leaf, and celery seed. Heat until very hot.

  2. Dissolve cornstarch in 1 cup of milk and add to the mixture.

  3. Cook for 15 minutes, then strain.

Serve

  1. Serve with a teaspoon of whipped cream on top.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Onion + peanuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,043 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Peanut + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Milk + peanuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the other flavours.
Peanuts
Give the sauce its nutty flavour and body as they are pounded and cooked in the milk.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the sauce a smooth, coating texture.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved cornstarch. Cornstarch must be fully dissolved in cold milk before it goes into the hot mixture, otherwise it clumps. Cooking then swells the starch granules and thickens the sauce.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, onion, peanut, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, onion, peanut, cream. 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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