Why it works: Sugar and peanut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,545 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Peanut Crisp
Ingredients
Directions
Place sugar in a pan over high heat and stir until melted.
Pour the melted sugar over the peanuts in a buttered dish.
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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Sugar + peanuttop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,545 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White sugar
- Melts into a liquid caramel that hardens around the peanuts, binding them into a brittle sweet crisp.
- Peanuts
- Provide the crunchy, nutty body that the hardened sugar holds together.
The step that matters
Stirring the sugar until fully melted. Sugar left partly crystallised or heated unevenly can turn grainy or scorch, so stir steadily until the sugar is a smooth, clear liquid before pouring.
“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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