One-ingredient peanut butter
When you’re next at the supermarket, have a look at the ingredients list for peanut butter. Chances are you’ll see peanuts, salt, emulsifier, sugar or honey, palm oil and maybe more.
Why do we need all these ingredients? When I was a lad, the local health food store would pour a bag of peanuts into a grinder, and collect the peanut butter in a jar underneath. All that is needed for peanut butter is squashed peanuts!
It turns out that you can still get peanut butter whose only ingredient is peanuts. It’s from Meridian and I get it from the Single Step Co-op in Penny Street Lancaster at £3.47 for a large 1kg tub.
Without all the extras, it tastes great! Without the emulsifiers, some of the oil can separate from the solids after a while, but it’s not a big deal. A quick stir blends everything together again, but I don’t even bother with that. I just plunge the knife in deeply so that I get some of the solids and some of the oil with each dig.