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Peanut Sandwiches

A sandwich filled with peanut butter mixed with dried figs, raisins, and dates, optionally spiced with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and dates work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Peanut Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix peanut butter, ground figs, ground raisins, and ground dates together.

  2. If the mixture is too stiff to spread, add a little currant or gooseberry jelly.

  3. Make sandwiches using the mixture as filling.

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. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

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

  2. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Fig + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Raisin + datestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Peanut butter
Provides fat and body, helping the filling hold together and spread smoothly.
Ground figs
Add sweetness and moisture, giving the filling a soft, chewy texture.
Ground raisins
Add sweetness and moisture, helping bind the filling into a thick paste.
Ground dates
Add sweetness and body, contributing to the filling's thick, sticky texture.

The step that matters

Adjusting a stiff filling with jelly. Dried fruit and nut pastes thicken as they sit, so they can tear bread when spread. Adding jelly a little at a time loosens the paste without making it runny, since too much liquid can soak into the bread.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peanut, butter, fig, raisin, dates):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peanut, butter, fig, raisin, dates. 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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