Peanut butter: It’s not just for Bamba

I must confess: I love peanut butter. Not the processed Jiffy I knew as a kid, loaded with sugar, hydrogenated trans-fats and other dubious ingredients, but rather the freshly ground, crunchy kind available at US health food stores, or the creamy, all-natural version manufactured by B&D, here in Israel. It’s made by toasting peanuts and grinding them sans additives, and what makes it so flavorful is the peanuts’ inherent sweetness. (By the way, B&D also produces sugar-sweetened peanut butter, so be sure to read the label.)

While I am American-born, I didn’t grow up eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches on white bread, like most of the kids I knew. My dear mother believed that peanut butter, jelly and sliced Wonder Bread wasn’t “our” kind of food, and we should stick to sandwiches made with cream cheese and fruit preserves on whole wheat bread instead. She also believed — and it turns out she was right — that it’s healthier to eat jam or preserves that contain real fruit, rather than jelly made with fruit juice, gelatin and sugar.

So I would sneak over to my Catholic neighbor, Ellen Sexton, who fed me my very first peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, spread on the cotton-softness of Wonder Bread. And I became a convert — to peanut butter, that is.

Since that time, I’ve learned a lot about peanuts, such as that they originated in South American countries like Peru and Brazil more than 4,000 years ago, and Portuguese explorers carried them off to Western Africa. Spanish galleons introduced them to the Philippines, Pacific Islands and Indonesia, and in later years, their fame spread to Malaysia, Vietnam, China and Japan. Whether pressed for oil, ground into butter, turned into a spicy and tempting sauce, toasted and sprinkled on salads and stir-fries or baked into cookies, peanuts have become a global favorite.

While it’s true that peanuts are rather calorific, they do offer a major bang for your buck – containing oleic acid (the healthy fat found in olive oil), folic acid, phytosterols and resveratrol —  the latter two helpful in the prevention of heart disease and some types of cancer. So eat some peanut butter, or work it into recipes, whether cookies or a favorite sauce.

Flourless, gluten-free peanut butter cookies (makes about 30)

• 1 cup natural cane sugar or demerara
• 1 cup peanut butter (with no additives)
• Pinch salt
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon real vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons chopped toasted hazelnuts or chopped 70% chocolate (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Line a baking pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, mix peanut butter, sugar, salt, egg and baking soda with a wooden spoon (better than a hand mixer) until smooth. Add the vanilla and nuts, and the chopped chocolate, if using.
3. Form two-centimeter balls and place on the baking sheet.
4. Bake 10-13 minutes until golden (check often, they burn quickly).
5. Let cool in pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to complete cooling.

Indonesian Sate Sauce

A delicious combination to use as a dipping or serving sauce for grilled chicken skewers.

• ½ cup pure peanut butter
• 1 garlic clove, minced or pressed
• 1-2 green onions (scallions) chopped
• ½ teaspoon each: curry powder and cumin
• ¼ teaspoon powdered coriander
• ½ tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• ½ cup hot water
• Toasted chopped peanuts to garnish

1. Grind all the ingredients except the chopped peanuts together in a food processor or blender. Serve warm over grilled chicken or tofu skewers and sprinkle with chopped peanuts.