I love it crunchy or smooth, with or without added salt or sugar, artisan or industrial, in sweet things or savoury. I can use it neat or cook it out. In short, peanut butter is a constant in my pantry and should be in everyone’s. Just pick your favourite – I’m not getting into that back-alley street fight.

The only thing I don’t love about peanut butter (any more) is eating it out of the jar. This is probably because, according to what Professor Charles Spence, head of Oxford University’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory, once told me, it now comes in plastic jars rather than the glass jars that conveyed a greater sense of quality and luxury. Gotta love how neuroscience solves so many of my dilemmas.

Anyhoo, it seems I’m not alone in my obsession with peanut butter – it’s been popping up on menus all over the country. Brisbane has peanut butter brownies at the Southside Tea Room and the  BB Elvis breakfast burger loaded with bacon, banana and peanut butter at Ben’s Burgers. Adelaide has a peanut butter fountain at House of Health Collective in the Central Market, and The Peanut Butter Bar in Sydney’s Leichardt makes everything from cakes to ice-creams with peanut butter.

If you want to play in this arena, try adding peanut butter to oozy chocolate fondants, make a peanut butter trifle or peanut butter fudge, or top a maple sponge with peanut butter icing: cream 3/4 cup of smooth peanut butter with 1/2 cup of icing sugar, then beat in about 1/4 cup cream.

Peanut butter even plays a role in fancy desserts such as the peanut butter and jam sandwich-inspired peanut mousse dessert at Provenance in the old Victorian gold town of Beechworth or the peanut butter parfait at Melbourne’s Supernormal.

Inspired by these, you might want to try Matt Wilkinson’s peanut butter  banoffee pie or our maple peanut butter self-saucing pudding. Alluring as these are, my current interest runs towards using peanut butter in savoury dishes.

Cheat’s satay 
Crunchy peanut butter makes a great cheat’s satay if you warm it with coconut milk, a little grated palm sugar (or just white), crushed coriander seeds and a splash of fish sauce with a spoonful of tamarind paste or a squeeze of lime to balance it. Customise it with chopped coriander stems and finely chopped red chilli, perhaps.

Peanut hoisin chicken thighs 
Mix a cup of peanut butter (crunchy or smooth) with ó cup of hoisin sauce. Add a splash of rice wine vinegar and more hoisin sauce to taste, then dump in eight boneless chicken thighs cut into two-bite pieces. Leave them to marinate for a bit, then spread them out on oven trays and bake them in a 200° C oven until they’re cooked through. Finish them under the grill to char up the edges if necessary. Serve them in warm wraps with Asian herbs such as Vietnamese mint, coriander and Thai basil and a simple salad that I stole from a friend of shredded carrot and finely sliced red onion dressed with sesame seeds, a little sesame oil, mirin, fish sauce and lime juice.

Peanut butter vegan bake 
I’m also using peanut butter a fair bit in my new cookbook, More. It goes so well with so many vegetables. It’s the base of a sauce I make with Thai red curry paste, coconut cream, lime juice and aromatics (such as kaffir lime leaves and the roots and stems of a bunch of coriander) that I combine with potato and pumpkin wedges for a no-fuss Thai curry bake. Once the vegetables are tender, serve the bake topped with loads of toasted coconut flakes, crushed salted peanuts, coriander leaves and fresh lime wedges.

Ghanaian peanut curry
I’ve discussed my love of this West African curry sauce before. I load it with bay leaves, garlic, ginger, ground cumin and coriander, chilli flakes and tomato paste with peanut butter providing the bulk and stock and canned tomatoes bringing the sauciness. I like to use it for braising browned chicken thighs, but in More  I’ve given it a plant-based spin as an oven bake of chickpeas and chunks of sweet potato finished with a generous handful of fresh spinach leaves thrown in at the end.

More of a good thing 
If you want more inspiration check out Matt Moran’s peanut butter and ginger chicken with peanut sambal or Shannon Bennett’s Vietnamese noodles with pork and herbs on our website. Shannon uses a simple dressing boosted with peanut butter, peanuts, sugar, fish sauce and lime juice served over pork meatballs in iceberg lettuce cups. Delicious. The dressing works really well on any Asian-inspired salad or grilled meats.

See here for Matt’s pumpkin, potato and peanut Thai red curry recipe.