Actually very easy

Peanut butter

The beliefPeanut butter is assumed to need added oil, sugar and emulsifiers.

The truthJust peanuts. They give up their own oil — all it takes is patience with the grinder.

20 minutes

How to make it

What you need

500 g raw shelled peanuts
1 teaspoon of salt
A strong food processor

How the engine read this list (2 lines)

500 g	Raw shelled peanuts	peanut
6 g	Salt	salt

An empty weight means that line could not be turned into grams — either the amount is open ("to taste") or the ingredient has no record here. Neither enters the sum as zero; they do not enter it at all.

Spread the peanuts in a single layer and roast at 160 °C for 12 to 15 minutes. Pale gold is right; darkened nuts make a bitter paste.
Rub them in a cloth while warm and the skins come away easily. Skins leave bitterness and grit.
Cool them completely before they go into the processor: warm nuts steam and ruin the texture.
Grind: powder at two minutes, a stiff paste at four, flowing at eight. Scrape the sides between runs and rest the motor if it heats up.
Once it flows, add the salt, run it one more minute and jar it.

Why it works

Roughly half a peanut is oil, and that oil sits inside the cells. Grinding tears the walls, frees the oil and turns solid powder into a flowing paste — the same mechanism as tahini, exactly. The process again has three stages: powder, stiff paste, flowing paste. Most people reach for oil at the stiff stage, when two or three more minutes of grinding would have done it. The palm oil and mono-diglycerides in commercial jars are not there for flavour but to stop separation: without an emulsifier the oil rises over time, and that is both natural and correct. Roasting matters here too — 12 to 15 minutes at 160 °C lowers the moisture, making grinding easier, and builds the aroma through Maillard. The peanut’s own sugars partly caramelise at the same time, which is why no sugar is needed.

The rough sum

506 grams going in

2835 kcal in total

100% of the mass has figures behind it. This is the sum of what GOES IN rather than of what comes out. Wherever something evaporates, drains or ferments the two differ: a kilo of milk is 150 g of cheese.

Diets it qualifies for

Gluten-free Vegan Vegetarian Lactose-free

Storage & shelf life

How long it keeps

Room temperature, sealed jar: 2 months
Fridge: 6 months, though it sets firm
With the oil risen: Normal — stir it back
Freezer: 1 year

Home-made peanut butter keeps less well than the shop jar because it contains no emulsifier and no preservative, and what limits it is oxidation. Peanut oil is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids and turns slowly rancid in air and light. Keeping the jar dark, levelling the surface after each use and closing the lid firmly extends its life noticeably. Separation is not spoilage but the natural consequence of having no emulsifier — arguably a mark of quality.

When to bin it A sharp bitterness at the back of the throat, a paint-like smell or mould means it goes. Do not confuse it with roasting bitterness, which is there from day one while rancidity arrives later.

History

Where it comes from

The peanut is South American and reached Anatolia late in the Ottoman period; it now grows around Osmaniye and Adana. Peanut butter itself was developed in late nineteenth-century America for a medical purpose — protein for patients who could not chew — and one of the patents belongs to Kellogg. The symbol of modern sports nutrition began as a hospital idea. In Turkey *fıstık ezmesi* usually means the sweet paste made from pistachios; the two are different things made the same way: grinding an oily kernel until it releases its oil.

The knack

Do not add oil. Patience is enough, and added oil shortens the keeping as well as changing the texture.
For a crunchy version, set a handful aside, chop it roughly and stir it in at the end.
Store the jar upside down: the oil rises, so in an inverted jar it ends up at the bottom and stirs back in easily.

Pastes and sauces