Peanut butter pizza, anyone?

WE’VE all tasted a peanut butter sandwich at least once, but when was the last time you had peanut butter pizza?

To celebrate peanut butter brand Skippy’s 90th anniversary, the brand threw a birthday party at Myke “Tatung” Sarthou’s Quezon City restaurant, Azadore last Sunday. At least, we thought it was a birthday party: there were ribs and a birthday cake (more on this later), after all.

The brand was founded in 1932 by Joseph L. Rosefield, innovating by making a peanut butter that doesn’t separate in the jar. The company changed hands several times, being owned by Best Foods, then Unilever, and finally landing on the lap of Hormel (as in the makers of Spam) in 2013.

To promote its 90th anniversary, it held a partnership with Mr. Sarthou, as well as a contest inviting fans to make recipes from the peanut butter. Jenny Ann Casintahan, a businesswoman and a mother of two kids, was chosen as the Grand Prize winner with her Grilled Pork Kare-Kare. She said in a statement, “I love to join cooking contests, I just feel happy doing it. I also love Skippy because it’s very versatile; it can be used for cooking dishes, baking, and is perfect for spreads in sandwiches which my kids love, because it is smooth and creamy.”

As for Mr. Sarthou, he came out with three new dishes using Skippy peanut butter: Spicy Peanut Chicken Pizza (flatbread-inspired pizza topped with savory chicken tikka strips, vegetables, and mushrooms over a nutty Indian butter chicken sauce); Chicken Satay Burger with Hoisin Peanut Butter (chicken satay with coleslaw in a soft and buttery brioche bun); and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake (chocolate and creamy peanut butter frosting between layers of moist and nutty chocolate cake; we thought that was Skippy’s birthday cake). These will be available at Azadore from Aug. 5 to 20.

Mr. Sarthou talked about the versatility of peanut butter in an interview. “The objective of Skippy is to see the product beyond just a spread,” he said. “Whenever we need texture, we add the Chunky peanut butter, just to finish,” he said. He said that while Filipino kare-kare (meat and vegetables in a peanut stew) is the obvious candidate for a peanut butter addition, one can add peanut butter to other saucy Filipino dishes (such as caldereta which is meat in a tomato-based sauce). “It serves both as thickener and stabilizer, but also for flavor,” said Mr. Sarthou. — Joseph L. Garcia