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Peanut Gravy

A simple gravy made with butter, peanut butter, flour, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Peanut Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brown the butter and flour together in a pan.

  2. Add the milk and peanut butter, mixing until smooth.

  3. Season with a pinch of salt.

  4. Serve over potatoes or your choice of dish.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Peanut + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peanut + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns with the flour for a nutty flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the liquid, giving it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth gravy.
Peanut butter
Contributes peanut flavour and richness, and helps give the gravy a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and peanut butter. Whisking the milk into the browned butter and flour gradually keeps the mixture smooth, since lumps form when liquid is added too quickly to flour. Mixing until smooth lets the flour thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk. 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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