Why it works: Peanut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,754 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓
Salted Peanuts
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Shell the raw peanuts.
Pour boiling water over the peanuts and let them sit for a few minutes until the skins slip off easily.
Roast
Melt a little butter in a dripping pan.
Add the prepared peanuts to the pan and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
Place the pan in a 350°F (175°C) oven and turn occasionally until browned to your liking.
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.
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Peanut + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,754 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Raw peanuts
- Provide the main body of the snack; their oils and starches brown and toast in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat that carries heat evenly and helps the peanuts brown and taste richer.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the surface of the peanuts and sharpens their roasted flavor.
The step that matters
Turning the peanuts while they roast. Peanuts on the bottom of the pan can scorch before the rest brown. Turning them occasionally exposes every side to the oven heat, so they colour evenly and do not burn in spots.
“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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