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Peanut-pruit

A fried batter-coated peanut ball with celery, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Peanut-pruit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the peanut mixture

  1. Boil 2 cups of milk with 2 cups of ground raw peanuts.

  2. Add 1 cup of finely chopped celery, ½ cup of seeded raisins or figs, 1 teaspoon of sweet marjoram, 2 teaspoons of oil, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of bread crumbs, and 2 eggs. Mix well.

  3. Shape the mixture into small balls.

Batter and fry

  1. For the batter, mix 2 tablespoons of flour, 1 egg, a pinch of salt, and 1 cup of milk until smooth.

  2. Dip the peanut balls into the batter.

  3. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  4. Serve with or without dressing.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Celery + marjoramtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together615 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground raw peanuts
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the balls.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Milk
Softens the peanuts and adds moisture to the mixture.
Flour
Forms the batter that coats the balls and helps them brown when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Oil that is too hot can brown the batter before the centres are heated through.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, celery, raisin, marjoram, bread, egg, flour):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, celery, raisin, marjoram, bread, egg, flour. 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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