Peanut Butter

At its most basic, peanut butter is nothing more than roasted peanuts ground into a smooth or chunky paste. Most peanut butter is more than that – at least sweetened and salted. It typically is used for elementary sandwiches with jelly or perhaps bananas, but it’s also a prominent ingredient in all kinds of other dishes, from peanut soup to Reese’s peanut butter cups. At Lemon Tree Co. in Boise, Idaho, a vegan banh mi includes curried roasted yams, raw cucumber, jalapenos, pickled carrots and radishes, and spicy house-made peanut butter. The Fort in Morrison, Colorado, makes an appetizer of peanut butter-stuffed pickled jalapeno peppers. At Grits & Groceries in Belton, South Carolina, you can have dessert of peanut butter crunch bread pudding. At Soul Dog of Poughkeepsie, New York, one can eat a frankfurter dressed with peanut sauce that is a sort of peanut butter. This concept is not as crazy as it sounds. Consider Thai peanut sauce, in which the luxe of the nut is counterpointed by the heat of chili. Soul Dog’s peanut sauce is a pepper-hot emulsion applied along with green onions. The fresh snap of the onions and the power of the chili-peanut spread are a good match for a well-muscled frank.