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anonymous
Q: is there anywhere i can get peanut butter?
i've been itching for peanut butter recently
I havent had any trouble finding it in most supermarkets, from Vietnamese to American, and that was before coming to Beijing.
I live in a third tier city, and I randomly found peanut butter in a tiny corner shop. It's probably at Walmart, too. If I can find it, you can probably find it as well, you just have to look around. Ask people at some stores if they have it.
Peanut butter is easy to get. China loves Jiff. :) It should be available in most supermarkets, corner stores, 7-11's, etc...
From peanuts. You can find the butter at Carrefore or Metro.
I've been to local supermarket chains in tons of places in China... First tier, second tier, no tier... Peanut butter is readily available. More available than actual butter.
Where are you located? Skippy and Jiff are usually easy to find and there are also many Chinese brands which aren't half bad.
Worse comes to worse, just buy a lot of peanuts and a food processor.
A peanut butter recipe is very simple, but be aware that most of the peanuts you find in China are some weird hybrid something type of peanut. I'm not quite sure exactly what breed they are, but they are normally long and rather firm when roasted, so I lean towards the Valencia or Virginia type peanuts. These are NOT the best type of peanuts to make peanut butter - but at some markets you CAN find the smaller, kind of rounder peanuts (normally called "Spanish" peantus in the west). These have a higher oil content and are much better for making peanut butter.
If you can only find the longer stlyle peanuts, just follow this simple recipe:
First, roast the peanuts. This is best done in the shell. Wash them in cool water to remove excess dirt (or crud..) then coat them in PEANUT OIL and a little salt. Yes, in the shell. The flavor will permeate inside, so don't worry. If you have an oven, roast them at 175 C (350 F) for about 1/2 an hour. If not, you can get similar results with a wok. Add in a bit more peanut oil and lightly fry them. Toss them quickly over high heat for about 10 minutes. Dry roasting will produce better results, but beggars can't be choosers....
Remove the shells. Throw the shells away and add the shelled peanuts to a food processor or blender. You should have about 15 ounces (425 grams) of peanuts in there. Add in 1 teaspoon of salt (about 5 grams - use Kosher salt if you can, or large grain sea salt... if you only have iodized table salt, reduce to 1/2) and 1 1/2 teaspoons (about 7.5 grams) of honey. Use good quality honey, not the honey flavored sugar water you find in cheaper brands....
Blend. Scrape down the sides, and blend again. Keep doing this until the peanuts are the size you like. If you like chunky, blend less. If you like creamy, keeeeeeeeeeeeep bleeeeeeeeennnnnndiiiiinnnnggggggg.
After the second or 3rd time of blending, start to SLOWLY drizzle in 1 and 1/2 teaspoons (about 7.5 grams) of peanut oil WHILE BLENDING. This will produce that lovely creamy texture. If you used those long dry peanuts, you might need to add a little more oil to balance the mixture.
You will know it's right when it has that consistancy of jarred peanut butter. If you add too much oil, it won't blend properly and you will see oil floating on top. Dump this off, blend again.
It won't look exactly like Skippy or JIff, but the taste will be awesome. You can store in in the fridge for up to 2 months in a tightly sealed container. This will make about a large size jar of peanut butter without all the emulsifiers and preservatives and crap. Peanuts, peanut oil, and large grain salt are all cheap in China. Good honey is a bit pricey, but for the amount you actually use, this recipe makes an awesome batch of peanut butter for WAY cheaper than the store bought brands. If you have kids that like peanut butter, this way provides a healthier option because it's not loaded with all the crap and high fructose corn syrup.
If anyone is interested, I can give you other recipes on how to make some good stuff with local ingredients - like mayo (expensive, even for the sort of bad Kewpie brand), salsa, tomato pasta sauce, etc. Just reply here, happy to share!
