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Sauce

Dutch Peanut Sauce

A spicy peanut sauce made with oil, cumin, onion, garlic, peanut butter, ketchup, milk or water, ginger powder, and Sambal Oelek.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, peanut (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: peanut

Directions

  1. Heat the oil and add the cumin, then cook for about 2 minutes.

  2. Add onion, garlic and a teaspoon of Sambal, then cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Add peanut butter and cook for another few minutes.

  4. Add the ketchup.

  5. Add milk or water to desired consistency.

  6. Blend in the ginger powder.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Cumin + gingertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cumin + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Garlic + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Peanut butter
Provides the main body, richness and nutty flavour of the sauce.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the savoury peanut and spice flavours.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and sweetness as it softens in the hot oil.
Cumin
Contributes warm, earthy aroma when bloomed in hot oil.

The step that matters

Adding milk or water. Peanut butter thickens quickly and can seize or become stiff, so liquid should be added gradually until the sauce reaches the desired consistency.

Flavor stand-ins for the sambal

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cumin, onion, garlic, butter, ketchup, milk, ginger):

  1. Turmericbetter flavor fit
  2. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  3. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  4. Sambalthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cumin, onion, garlic, butter, ketchup, milk, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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