Celery with Spicy Asian Peanut Butter

From the book The Basic Gourmet Entertains by Diane Morgan, Dan Taggart, and Kathleen Taggart

Yield

80 to 90 hors d'oeuvres

Introduction

Do you remember when your mom fixed celery stuffed with cream cheese or peanut butter? For a great cocktail nibble, we took Skippy Super Chunk peanut butter and mixed it with ginger root, garlic, soy sauce, and sesame oil to create a fabulous Asian peanut butter to stuff into chunks of celery. Our guests made a joke about Skippy, and we said, “You bet!”

Ingredients

	5	slices fresh ginger root (about the size of a quarter), peeled
	2	scallions with green part, cut into ½-inch lengths
	3	large cloves garlic, peeled
	1	Tbsp. granulated sugar
	1	tsp. red pepper flakes
	2	cups super chunk peanut butter
	4	Tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce
	2	Tbsp. Asian sesame oil
	1	large stalk celery (1½ to 2 pounds)

Steps

1. In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, place ginger, scallions, garlic, sugar, and red pepper flakes. Process until ingredients are finely minced. Add peanut butter, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Process until all ingredients are combined. Place in a small mixing bowl, cover, and set aside at room temperature (see Cook’s Notes).
2. Prepare celery by trimming off tops, bottom core, and white portion of ribs. Use a vegetable peeler to remove strings from back of ribs. This isn’t as necessary on the inner, more tender ribs, but makes for a nicer texture on the outer ribs (hey, we’re picky!). Wash and dry celery. Cut ribs, straight across or on a slight angle (kind of an Asian look) into 1-inch-long chunks. Place in a plastic bag, seal, and refrigerate until ready to stuff.
3. Stuff celery 1 to 2 hours ahead of serving. Use a table knife to spread peanut butter into celery ribs. Smooth top or leave it more textured. If you feel like getting fancy, use a pastry bag and medium star tip to pipe peanut butter rosettes into each chunk of celery. Arrange stuffed celery on 1 or 2 platters, cover, and keep at room temperature until serving.

Notes

• If you don’t own a food processor, borrow one! No, this can also be done by hand or in a mixer, but first you’ll need to mince the ginger, scallions, and garlic. For hand mixing, use a large bowl and a large, heavy spoon (and a strong arm!).
• Refrigerating the Asian peanut butter seems to diminish the bright ginger and chili flavors. We recommend making the peanut butter the day of the party. It’s so quick to make that washing the food processor work-bowl takes longer than combining the ingredients!

Copyright © 2006–2008 Culinate, Inc. All rights reserved.