Chile Paste Taste-off
Having a chile paste on hand is having a shortcut to flavor. Some are all heat. Some are heat plus. Plus garlic, plus spices, plus sugar, plus fermented soy, plus fish…if anything could possibly be considered delicious, inventive societies have added chile to it and made it into a sauce.
Some are more saucey, some more pasty.
Chile paste, chile sauce, all are tasty.
Having a chile paste on hand is having a shortcut to flavor. Some are all heat. Some are heat plus. Plus garlic, plus spices, plus sugar, plus fermented soy, plus fish…if anything could possibly be considered delicious, inventive societies have added chile to it and made it into a sauce.
I have my favorites, of course. But they might be different from your favorites, and I am sure there are many that I have never tried - there are worlds of flavor out there to discover!
To start us on our journey, I assembled a small sampling of chile sauces and pastes to taste back to back. Not only did this give me a chance to discover a few new pantry staples, but it also let me compare heat levels between them, to make substitutions a little easier for you, my loyal readers (both of you).
That’s how much I care about you. (Both of you.)
If you’ve got a little free time (14 minutes), you can watch me taste them in sequence in my first ever justeffingcook video post.
Or you can read my summary below. Or just look at the pretty pictures.
Having choices rocks!
Harissa Paste
A favorite of mine. It makes any roasted vegetable shine, is excellent in all manner of sauces, and I even enjoyed eating it straight from the jar. Aromas of toasted cumin and chile with a bracing edge. A complex flavor that includes toasted spices, chiles, tomatoes, and preserved lemon. Completely rad.
Lucius scale = 2.
Crunchy Garlic Chili Sauce
My newest pantry staple. You need to find this and put it on everything immediately. Seriously, I can’t stress this enough. I have heard this referred to as “chile crisp” as well, so I guess look for anything with the words “crunchy” or “crispy” along with “garlic” and “chile”. This tastes like the garlic bits on an everything bagel got salted and crisped up, and then took a bath in a mild but flavorful chile oil. A+++.
Lucius scale = 2.
Crushed Calabrian Chiles
I love these damn chiles and use them in pasta sauces constantly. Fresh, fruity, and little sweet with a smoky depth that makes me crave them again and again. The heat is mild and steady, rather than accumulating.
Lucius scale = 3.
Sambal Olek
Please note that there are many types of Sambal, and I recommend you try as many as you can get your hands on: Sambal Matah, Sambal Ijo Padang, Sambal Terasi, Sambal Bajak, Sambal Malado. Probably more. This particular sambal is fresh, tart, and more zippy than spicy.
Lucius scale = 3.
Gochujang
Ketchup’s more interesting and way more dangerous sister. She has serious attitude and zero tomatoes. Instead, she is made of chiles, seasonings, sweet glutinous rice, and fermented soybean paste. Gochujang is packed with layers of flavor and a shit ton of umami. I love it in spicy peanut sauce, glazes, barbecue sauces and marinades. Pictured above are two brands: one without a heat grade, and the other a “hot” version (as opposed to “mild” and “very hot”). Each had a slightly different, complex flavor profile, and both were delicious.
Lucius scale = 3 and 6, respectively.
Szchuan Chili Sauce
Very smoky aroma from toasted spices and chiles. This sauce diverges from the rest with the addition of Sichuan pepper, which has a tongue-numbing effect along with sweetish, citrusy flavor. Added to this is an assortment of sweet spices like anise and cinnamon, and chile, of course. Complex, smoky, earthy.
Lucius scale = 4
Ning Chi Sauce
This is a Taiwanese version of Sichuan-style chile paste. It intrigued me by being labeled as “Taiwan’s hottest chili paste”. It’s straight up Sichuan peppercorns and chile, both steeped in its carrier oil. Plus a good dose of salt. This didn’t have the almost-burnt edge that the first did, and I preferred it slightly. A solid contender for pantry shelf space.
Lucius scale = 5
Garlic Chile Paste
Fresh, fruity chiles and sweetish (not crunchy) garlic. In contrast with the crunchy garlic sauce above, here the chile is the star and the garlic is merely a talented backup singer. Delicious, and spicy.
Lucius scale = 6
Ning Chi “Linsanity” Sauce
I assume the printers missed an apostrophe in there, but who cares when the sauce is this delicious? And fucking hot. Simple ingredients: chile, garlic, salt and sugar, but this sauce is more than the sum of its parts. Likely started with some excellent chiles.
Lucius scale = 8
Lee Kum Kee XO Sauce
I am most definitely a culinary tourist when it comes to adding seafood to a chile sauce. This sauce was a keeper, though. Thinly shaved strands of dried shrimp and scallop make this a pretty delicate tasting seafood sauce. Great umami and mild heat. It’s going in my next stock for ramen.
Lucius scale = 3
VSOP Spicy Sauce
As you can probably tell from the photo, this sauce does contain fish. A little tougher for the Western palate perhaps, at least if you are going to eat it straight out of the jar, like I did. Ingredients include black beans, soy beans, anchovies, dried shrimp, garlic and ginger. This one is more about the fish than the chile.
Lucius scale = 3
Fucking Sharp Knives
Have you ever watched Gordon Ramsay mince an onion into perfect 2 mm cubes in 3 seconds flat? Or seed and dice a tomato so cleanly the tomato didn’t even see it coming? One minute it’s just sitting there and the next it’s laying in a million pieces like, “What the fuck just happened???”
Edge porn. If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.
Have you ever watched Gordon Ramsay mince an onion into perfect 2 mm cubes in 3 seconds flat? Or seed and dice a tomato so cleanly the tomato didn’t even see it coming? One minute it’s just sitting there and the next it’s laying in a million pieces like, “What the fuck just happened???”
You can’t do that shit without fucking sharp knives.
I admit, I went for years without knowing what was wrong with my chopping game. I tried to cut tomatoes and ended up with mush. Weak, confused, I bought a serrated “tomato knife”. I was in a dark place.
I finally got myself straight, though. I dropped a few hundy on a set of Japanese knives, a knife block for storage, and some Japanese water stones to keep them sharp.
And then had to ban the rest of my family from using them. It was that or get rid of them. My family, I mean. The knives were there to stay.
My advice to you is simple:
Get good steel
Don’t fuck it up
Keep it sharp
Note the clean, uncrushed edges of the parsley. That means the knife is sharp. If you cut with a dull knife the cut edges will be dark green as the knife edge crushes more cell walls. Does this matter? Probably not for taste, but for pride? Most certainly.
Get Good Steel:
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. As the carbon content rises, the steel becomes harder and stronger, but also more brittle. Other elements are added to steel for durability, corrosion resistance, and edge retention: chromium, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, silicon, vanadium. A good knife balances durability and edge retention with the ability to take a fine edge.
Most German knife manufacturers use X50CrMoV15 steel in their high-quality knives. It offers great corrosion resistance, great wear resistance and decent edge retention. This was my starter knife set, and it was pretty hard to fuck up. The main drawback is that, because it’s so hard, it’s also harder to sharpen to a razor fine edge.
When I got a little more serious about my knife game I stepped up to those Japanese knives I mentioned. They have a VGMAX core (very high in carbon making them very, very hard) which is clad in layers of softer, less brittle, corrosion resistant steel. This process is called “kasumi” and is a traditional way of making samurai swords, in theory giving the blade the best properties of both steels: an extremely sharp edge, but more ductile and and easier to sharpen.
All good to know, but frankly, they had me at “Samurai sword”.
Whatever you have in your knife block, know what you’ve got. Pay attention to how it holds its edge, try not to fuck it up too much, and figure out how to keep it sharp.
Don’t Fuck it Up:
There are two ways you can fuck up your knife big-time: storing it wrong, and cutting on a bad surface.
Don’t throw all your knives in a drawer and let them clatter around and expect anything from them besides chipped edges and heartbreak. They do make drawer inserts for knives, and those are a good solution - especially if you have little ones (‘cause drawers lock). Another good solution when kids are around is an under-cabinet block. Out of reach, out of sight, and handy. Other blocks sit on your counter, and either have slots for your knives, or magnets that hold them to a surface. Wall-mounted magnetic strips are probably the slickest option. But whatever method you use, you still need to pay attention to the edges as the knives move into or onto their storage place. Don’t be an asshole to your knives.
Let’s talk cutting boards.
End-grain cutting boards are usually cited as the easiest on a knife’s edge, because the knife edge can push aside the wood fibers rather than being forced across them. And if we lived in the French countryside and were chopping our herbs on the cross-section of an oak tree we inherited from our grandmother, that would be great. But the end-grain boards available to us today are made from multiple pieces of wood glued together, so your knife is also pressing into epoxy.
When you look at a steel knife edge using electron microscopy after cutting on different surfaces, edge-grain (flat-grain) boards do as well as end-grain boards, if not slightly better. Those thin, incredibly convenient cutting mats you can toss in the dishwasher? A hard En-Oh NO. (I still own them, as well as a drawer full of knives I don’t give a shit about. I let my family use that garbage while I use my good knives on a high-soft board.)
Unsurprisingly, the Japanese have all the answers in terms of cutting surfaces. First, hinoki wood boards. Hinoki is a soft cypress wood, antibacterial and easy on knife edges. If your sushi chef doesn’t have a hinoki board, chances are he is using a high-soft board. I have no fucking idea why it’s called that, but I do know that it is made of a polypropylene elastomer - essentially synthetic rubber. Non-porous in addition to antibacterial and very easy on your knives. These boards aren’t cheap, but neither are good knives, and neither is all that time you would otherwise spend sharpening and cursing.
Someone in my household recently used one of my good knives to cut tomatoes on a fucking marble pastry board. I will withhold her identity to protect her from shame, trolling, and possible retribution, but I will say that her name rhymes with “Annika”.
It was a teaching moment.
My advice for you: don’t fucking do that.
Keep it Sharp:
Want to know if your knife is still sharp? Inspect the edge near a window or under a light and try to reflect light off of the edge. If you can, it’s dull. After sharpening, the edge of the knife becomes invisible.
One point of order: that steel rod that came with your knife set is a honing rod. As you use your knife, the edge can bend ever so slightly, You run each side of your knife edge along it to coax the edge back into line. Not only does it make your knife cut more effectively, but it helps prevent injury to the edge. Sort of like stretching before you work out. Sort of.
Hone often so you can sharpen less.
Sharpening is always done with some form of abrasive material that is harder than steel. Sharpening refines and renews the steel by grinding away a tiny bit of material. Sort of like Crossfit. Sort of?
You either need to sharpen your own knives or take them to someone who can sharpen them. If you choose the latter, then you are without your favorite knife for a while. I like my knives better than I like a lot of people, and I don’t like being apart from them.
I spent a year and a half or so trying to master my Japanese water stones. I watched countless videos and sat on my living room floor for a weekend binge-watching Netflix as I ground each blade in my collection over successively finer grade stones to be rewarded with merely “adequately” sharpened knives.
I am all for knowing the basics - nixtamalizing my own corn for tortillas, smelting copper to make my husband a watch, etc. But I also care about results, and the result/effort ratio on the water stone front was for shit.
So I broke down and bought a belt grinder designed specifically for kitchen knives. Mine is from Work Sharp, but there are other systems out there. The one I bought has an angle guide specifically for Japanese knives, which have a narrower angle than western knives.
The photo on the left shows my chef’s knife after the marble incident. Dull, rounded edge. Chips. Totally fucky.
I took it to the grinder and it was perfect again. The investment in the sharpener saved the knife and I didn’t have to sell my daughter off for medical experiments. Money well spent in both our opinions.
I still use those water stones for other types of knives, and maybe one day I will master them. But I suspect I will master smelting before then.
In Conclusion:
Get the best knives that fit your budget and treat them right. Do not use those knives to cut on stone, concrete, farm equipment, or public installations. Do not use them to pry open bottle caps or some shit. Hone them frequently. Keep them sharp. Then you, too, can be Gordon Ramsay.
Sort of.
How To Stock Your Bar With Five Bottles
I am pleased as rum punch to introduce a new contributor to the site: JPM, aka Agent Four. I feel lucky to have enticed him away from MI5’s secretive cocktail program for what I hope will be the first of many glimpses into the thrilling world of adult beverages.
I am pleased as rum punch to introduce a new contributor to the site: JPM, aka Agent Four. I feel lucky to have enticed him away from MI5’s secretive cocktail program for what I hope will be the first of many glimpses into the thrilling world of adult beverages.
Like Mark Twain once said, the difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between a lightning bug and lightning. Or as Lucius would say, it’s the difference between fuck and fuck you. Bottom line: knowing matters.
This is only the beginning and there is more for you to know.
Picture The Great Gatsby.
No, not Leonardo’s movie, I’m talking about the book.
Can you conjure that time when gentlemen wore fedoras, and women wore long satin gloves?
No?
Okay, how about Mad Men.
Or better yet, the two-martini lunches.
Those were the days of glamor.
Of luxury.
Of simpler times and simpler things.
What happened to holding the door open to a stranger?
What happened to tucking in your shirt?
What happened to shining your shoes?
What happened to a fucking gorgeous cocktail to be savored alone or with your dear friends and family?
What happened to slowing down, noticing the special moments; those moments in life that matter.
Join me.
Help me.
We need this right now.
Let’s channel parts of Gatsby or Mad Men (even if those guys were a bunch of a-holes).
Too often in life we wish we did things that we do not actually do. For many, one of those things includes making cocktails at home. I’m not talking about a fucking Jack and Coke or a putrid Seven and Seven. (A small portion of my soul actually died after writing that sentence).
I am talking about a well-crafted Old Fashioned or an exquisitely executed East India cocktail. I’m referring to elixirs that require passion and soul to craft. They have meaning and depth and history and they tell a story. They materialize only at the moment when the ingredients come together. They require more than a bottle opener or a corkscrew. You CAN make cocktails at home...and these days? Why the hell wouldn’t you?
There was a time when people, men and women, could, at the drop of a fedora or the removal of elbow length satin gloves, mix a balanced yet complex cocktail. They could sit back in a well-appointed leather chair and have a conversation while sipping a perfectly made Manhattan and allow the languid moments of a quiet evening to pass slowly into the night. Sadly, that time seems to have passed us by, like the idea of a handwritten thank you note on letter pressed eighty-pound cotton paper. Well, I am hoping you might be willing to help me bring back the joy and sophistication of that era.
To do this well, (and we here at justeffingcook.com never recommend doing anything unless you intend to do it kick-supreme-effing-ass well) you will need to gather a few critical supplies. But from a small collection comes an expansive horizon of opportunities.
Learn what you need to know to enjoy a good cocktail and pay attention to the moments in life that matter. But before the joy, before the glamour, before the sophistication happens, we need to understand the spirits.
The Spirits
Vodka
A good place to start is with a bottle of vodka. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), vodka is an odorless, colorless, tasteless spirit. It is often the choice of spirit for those that don’t like the taste of alcohol. Mix it up with anything sweet and it is a simple and efficient way to get shitfaced.
Vodka is one of the oldest spirits and one that is distilled in many countries. Vodka is like a crescent wrench, it can be used to turn nuts, bolts, and screws, but you can also use it to drive in a nail, or shatter a window, or break the fingers of a captured spy or hit a wild boar as it is charging at you in the underbrush in Namibia. The lesson: Vodka is versatile. Vodkas are often a grain-based alcohol made from corn. Some vodkas are made from potatoes and yet others are made from wheat. Because vodka is supposedly “tasteless” there is no need to spend a lot of money on vodka. You can get a very balanced well distilled vodka for a decent price. Tito’s is an excellent American vodka that is made from corn. Another great option would be Belvedere vodka. Oh, and don’t forget, Vodka is an easy spirit to infuse with flavors.
Gin
In my mind, no other spirit is more underrated and misunderstood than gin. It has an incredibly rich history and played a key role in providing some light during the darkness of prohibition, yet it is so easily dismissed.
Because Gins often have such a distinct flavor profile—that heavy, medicinal juniper palette—I often hear: “I hate Gin, it tastes like I’m drinking a pine tree”. This is usually delivered by a scrunched-up face that looks like it just had a fucking lock of nose hairs forcefully extracted from it. But let me be the first to tell, you don’t know shit about Gin. Due to the great American marketing machine, most of you have enjoyed the Toyota Corolla, the Honda Civic, and the Nissan Sentra of Gins. That’s right, Bombay Sapphire, Tanqueray, and Hendricks are, well, just so cliché.
No other spirit has as broad of a flavor profile as Gin. Consequently, not all Gins are created equal. Since there are so many interesting Gins, I would argue that one may want to consider buying more than one. Put simply, the perfect Gin for a Martini (Plymouth) is not the perfect Gin for a Gimlet (Sipsmith).
I don’t have time to delve into it here; but know that there are two distinct styles: Old Tom versus London Dry. Oh, and the dryness of a Martini HAD nothing to do with the vermouth, but that is a different fucking story for a different fucking time.
One thing I suggest everyone do, is to spend some time at your favorite craft cocktail bar, chatting up the bartender. Remember though, there is a very precise way to do this, don’t fuck it up. Much like defusing a bomb, if you don’t know how to do it, then don’t. You don’t want to be that guy or gal at the bar—the one everyone hates—especially the bar tender. (I can go into that detail later) Any way ask them what their favorite Gins are and which ones they like to use in which cocktails. You just might meet a bear named St. George, who knows a Botanist from Barr Hill, who saw a rabbit covered in gunpowder, heading to Japan to fetch six botanicals. Before you know it, you will be on a Gin tasting flight that could change the trajectory of the next decade of your life if you have the gumption to be open minded. You’ll also likely be fucking wasted by the end.
And after all, isn’t life about creating and enjoying great moments?
Rum
Ah, Rum, the magic Caribbean elixir. Rum is like Captain Jack Sparrow: unapologetically carefree, capricious, concocting, conceited. Bourbon thinks Rum doesn’t give a fuck. And Rum doesn’t give a fuck what Bourbon thinks. Rum knows what it is and what it is not; and it doesn’t try to be something it can’t.
Rum is soft.
Rum is supple.
Rum is content.
But Rum is precarious…It is like the disheveled guy at the poker table that everyone thinks is the sucker, but in the end, he walks away not with all the loot (although he could have if he wanted to), but with enough to buy a good breakfast and fill his pockets for a day of mischievous fun. Because tomorrow’s hangover, is well, tomorrow, and today is all he knows. Rum is like a middle child, it has a cool confidence because it knows it is always invited to be a part of some of the best cocktails there are. In the end, Rum delivers a smooth, sweet, soulful, seduction.
Rum IS NOT FUCKING Captain Morgan!!!!
I would recommend you start with a white rum such as Plantation’s 3 Star or Flor de Caña Extra Seco or Rhum Clement Canne Bleue. Once you have found the white rum you like, you can start heading down the rabbit hole that is dark rums. These can be so beautiful and complex. Dark Rums are wonderful to sip year-round. Just some thoughts…Planation Old Barbados Rum, Clement VSOP Rhum, Don Papa Rum 10 Years.
Tequila
Perhaps no other spirit has left a greater trail of destruction than Tequila. Whiskey has taken more marriages, and Gin has taken more careers, but Tequila has probably taken more people’s virginity. But let’s acknowledge that this might not be entirely Tequila’s fault. Right?
I mean when the bar tender says, would you like another and you blurt out “fuck yeah” before she can finish asking you if you want another, that might not be Tequila’s fault.
Or when you are so effing wasted that you are oblivious to the fact that two of your hair extensions have fallen out because they got snagged on the strap of your camisole as you were taking it off so you didn’t splatter barf on it while leaning over the toilet. And now, as you are walking back into the kitchen from the bathroom (where you left your camisole on the towel bar), unaware of the fact that you are rhythmically bobbing up and down like a pirate with a peg leg that is too short because you broke the left heel of your Christian Louboutaine stiletto (attempting to do a cartwheel), you are greeted by a sea of inquisitive faces and curious thrill seekers wondering why you are only wearing a bra, jeans and a pair of stilettos with one heel missing, and then someone says; “hey let’s do Tequila shots!” And you say, “OH, HELLS TO THE YES”. Is that Tequila’s fault?
I don’t think so.
Now, let’s get a few things straight:
Tequila is made exclusively from the piña (not the leaves) of Blue Agave
Mezcal on the other hand is made from any type of Agave
Tequila is produced primarily in the town of Tequila in the state of Jalisco, Mexico
Tequila, like bourbon and other spirits and wine, have strict production laws
It is protected as Mexican Designation of Origin Product (think Champagne and France)
UNESCO designated the region near Tequila a world heritage site in 2006
There is no such thing as a worm in a bottle of Tequila—that is a marketing gimmick and it’s bullshit and has caused so many people to think tequila is cheap and shitty and IT IS NOT!
Aging:
Blanco (white) or Plata (silver): no aging, bottled immediately
Reposado: aged between 2 – 12 months
Añejo: aged between 12 – 36 months
Extra Añejo: aged more than 36 months
History is filled with great ironies, like Beethoven going deaf with he was trying to finish his greatest symphony, (the 9th). Or that Gunpowder was invented in the 9th century by Chinese alchemists who were attempting to find an “elixir of immortality”. (Just think of the mortality gunpowder has caused)
One of the great ironies of the brilliant TV drama Mad Men is that while it rekindled people’s interest in classic cocktails by celebrating the old school cocktail culture and demonstrated the rich soulful elements of the perfect craft cocktail, that very advertising world brought about so many shitty things that have sullied the true spirit of cocktails: such as goddamn Zima, or slogans like “shaken not stirred’, and worms in Tequila bottles. As a result, people are left with the impression that Tequila is a shitty south of the border spirit that left you with a wicked hangover and puke in your hair on that one epic spring break trip.
Well I am here to tell you Tequila is anything but…
To start, just stock your bar with a nice mid-priced blanco Tequila. You can get great Tequilas for $20-30. Sure, you can get sucked into the work of a Don Draper ad man and think you have to buy Petrón or be seduced by George Clooney’s crew with Casamigos (to be fair George is no longer part of it, he already cashed his billion dollar check when he sold it. How lucky can one man be? I mean how many days is the sun going to shine on same dog’s ass?) Instead I’d steer you toward Espolon or Horitos Plata, or my personal favorite Arette (named after a famous horse that won 2 Gold and 1 Bronze Olympic medals for horse jumping). If you are planning on making cocktails vs sipping the Tequila then pass on using aged spirits. The same is true for those “Cadillac” margaritas using “gold” tequilas. That’s is just some huckster who is patting you on your back with one hand while he is taking your wallet with the other. First, you are wasting money. Second, you are wasting the point of the aged spirit. Lastly, you actually want the sharpness of the edge of silver Tequila to give the flavor and punch needed to balance a well-crafted cocktail.
Creative tip: Consider Tequila or Mezcal in place of the usual spirits to riff on classic cocktails such as the Mai Tai, or Manhattan.
Whiskey
Whiskey:
Fuck where do I begin?
(I’ll hold off on my opinions)
If we are going to discuss Whiskey, then we have to discuss Bourbon and Scotch. And we have to talk about Scotland, and Ireland and Canada, and The Commonwealth of Kentucky, and Tennessee. It can get confusing because it is a long and winding tale of low land Scottish farmers, and back woods stills, and taxes, and gentlemen and cowboys, and politics. But that tale will be told at a different time.
I suppose a good place to start is with this simple axiom: all Bourbon is Whiskey, but not all Whiskey is Bourbon.
Whiskey can wear cowboy boots, so can Tequila and Vodka: but not Gin. Whiskey can wear a tuxedo. but not Rum. Whiskey hangs out in honkytonks and attends galas, and tells stories around campfires, and brokers deals at Old Ebbitt Grill. Whiskey can be sanguine while being acerbic. It’s demur, complex, and meaningful.
And it’s fucking awesome.
If you’re going to do this well, you will need buy more than one bottle of Whiskey. But just like Sir Edmond Hillary, every climb begins with a first step. So, here is the deal, buy a Whiskey you like and don’t apologize for it. I like rye, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like Bourbon. There are some amazingly beautiful and rich and complex Whiskies. Be thoughtful about you purchase. If you are planning on making a cocktail then choose a mid-level Whiskey. If you are planning on drinking this neat or using it in an Old Fashioned then consider a nice Bourbon. It’s almost laughable to suggest a Whiskey, it’s like suggesting a man to a woman. “Hey, you should really consider this guy, he is a Greg, college educated, has a good job, but wears tee shirts under his button downs”. In the end you just have to try a bunch before you figure out what you like.
OK fine, put my fingers in a vice, I’ll suggest a few:
Templeton Rye
Mitcher’s
Rittenhouse
High West Campfire
Knob Creek
Basil Hayden’s
Buffalo Trace
And there you have it, how to stock your bar with 5 bottles. But my friends, that is NOT all you need to know. Next time we will talk about modifiers, and ice, and tools, and well, the rest of the story.
The Best Pepper
If you read my salt post and thought my pantry was a little excessive, buckle the fuck up, because here we go.
Clockwise from top left: wild-harvested Piper longum, white Piper borbonese, Piper borbonese, red Piper nigrum Kampot, Xanthoxylum piperatum Sancho. Center: Piper nigrum Tellicherry
If you read my salt post and thought my pantry was a little excessive, buckle the fuck up, because here we go.
I hope to holy hell that you do not believe that pepper is something that comes from a shaker, because we would need to have words. No, pepper is a God-gifted nugget delivering a pungent heat along with sweet or floral or citrusy or piney flavors. Or several of those flavors at once. Unlike chile peppers, the heat doesn’t come from capsaicin, but from the compound piperine.
In addition to piperine, pepper contains literally hundreds of other compounds, giving this spice a bouquet of aromas and flavors, as well as other properties. Antioxidant, antibacterial, prodigestive, anticancer. Yup, it’s a special little fruit.
You heard me right, fruit. It’s the fruit of a flowering tropical vine. When harvested at full ripeness, we get red peppercorns. When harvested before fully ripe and dried, black peppercorns. If those unripe berries are either freeze-dried or preserved in brine, we have green peppercorns. When harvested fully ripe, and soaked and fermented to remove the outer fruit, and then dried, we get white pepper. FYI, pink peppercorns are not pepper. They are dried berries that are more closely related to cashews than to pepper.
You might be thinking, “There are only four kinds of pepper: black, green, red, and white. What’s all this buckle-the-fuck-up shit?”
Wrong! We have barely begun to count the peppers!
Let’s get taxonomic. Piper is the genus or what we can accurately call pepper. Your typical black pepper is Piper nigrum, of the black/green/red/white discussion. From that same species, there are variations depending on the region the pepper is grown.
Botanical illustration of Piper nigrum.
Tellicherry, Kollimalai, Malabar, Shimoga, Rajakumari, Mlamala, all from India, along with subtly different varieties form the Cardamom Hills. Then there’s Sarawak from Malaysian Borneo. Abong from Sumatra, Indonesia. Kampot from Cambodia. Phu-quoc from Vietnam. Yupanqui from Ecuador. Belem from Brazil. Ceylon from Sri Lanka. Penja from Camaroon, a wonderful white pepper. There are more, and they all taste different and wonderful.
Piper nigrum. It’s a fruit, see?
All those varieties? That’s just Piper nigrum, folks.
Piper cubeba: cubeb, or tailed pepper, is grown mostly in Indonesia. It is harvested and dried much like black pepper, but with aromas and flavors of menthol and camphor and allspice.
Piper cubeba. Who doesn’t love the old-timey botanical print?
Piper guineense, or Ashanti pepper, is a West African species of pepper similar to cubeb. It is less bitter and more herbaceous. It is sometimes used in the spice mix known as berbere, although Ethiopian long pepper (see below) is more commonly incorprated.
Dried Piper guineense.
Long pepper comprises three different species that I know of. There may be more - I’m no expert. There is Piper longum from India, also know as pipli, Piper capense from Ethiopia, also known as timiz, and Piper retrofactum, the Balinese long pepper. They come from similar flowering vines as Piper nigrum, this time with tiny fruits, each about the size of a poppyseed, jammed together on a stalk. Compared to Piper nigrum, long pepper is considered more flavorful, with a slower onset heat and lingering flavor.
Dried Piper longum.
Now, if you looked closely at that first photo, you may have thought I was trying to pull one over on you. And you were right! Which of those kids is not like the others? Xanthoxylum! Not a “true” pepper, in that it isn’t in the genus Piper, but included because it’s rad!
There are several species in the Xanthoxylum genus that give rise to important culinary peppers. The most famous is Sichuan pepper, one of the ingredients in Five Spice powder. You may also come across Andaliman pepper, Mahkwan pepper, and Sancho pepper. These peppers all pack an amazing lemony scent and taste, and make your tongue go all numb and tingly. Cool, right?
I’ve saved my favorite for last. Piper borbonense. Is it The Best Pepper? If you have learned one thing from this post, hopefully it is that there can be no best pepper with all the world has to offer. This however, is my Best Pepper.
Part of the reason I put this baby at the end was that only the hardy souls who could make it this far would learn this magical secret. Because I don’t need a whole bunch of yokels buying up all the good shit. But if you’ve lasted this long, I figure you deserve it.
Piper borbonense is known as voatsiperifery where it is grown on Madagascar. It is a wild “tailed” pepper like cubeb. Harvested by hand, like truffles and diver scallops. It’s super complex and I love it so hard. I put it in a special grinder that I keep with the Himalayan salt. I only let the people I really really like use them.
What does is smell like? Pepper, sure. But it’s also earthier than typical pepper, with hints of cardamom and nutmeg. There’s also a floral/citrus thing happening in there that’s hard to put a finger on.
What does it taste like? For me, in addition to the pepper heat, there are sweet spices and lemony high notes. It’s got layers.
Maybe this will be your special pepper, too. Or maybe you’ll fall in love with the flavor profile of kampot, or timiz. Now imagine all those amazing subtle notes and grinding them over a simple lemon butter sauce or a plank of salmon or even a green salad.
The people eating your food may not know why it’s so good. They will probably just think you are a really fucking great cook.
You win.
The End.