What's in a PEPPER?
mjk1025
I know is that I am crazy about my mom's pickled peppers. They are not
any peppers you know. She grows them in her own little garden. They
are sun-kissed by her tender care. They are green, about a half-inch
wide, and anywhere from 1.5 to three inches long.
And it's really not about liking spicy food. This thing is addictive!
Ancient Korean culinary tradition draws on the homeopathic qualities
of foods. Peppers and their pungent taste are excellent appetizers and
once consumed, can have a detoxifying, purifying effect. Quality and
freshness are important, of course, and they don't get any better than
my mom's organically grown peppers (who would have thought that simple
home made would be labeled with such fancy, highly marketed word as
'organic'? ;-).
My mom's pickled peppers are so good that I dare not try to decipher
all of her ingredients, since I know that they are as much about the
elements as they are about the process and her special touch! I need
to find a way of bottle'ing my mom's touch, because she does magic
with food and plants! Anyhow, I will try: once she harvests the
peppers in the summer, she pickles them whole in some concoction of
water, rice vinegar, soy sauce, fermented shrimp (yes!), and a myriad
of spices. Everything is nicely nestled in a large egg shaped clay
earthenware, and gently pressed down by a smooth, round rock
(everything has to be natural!).
The hardest part is the waiting game. Tic-tac-tic-tac on months at an
end... The baby has got to get her beauty rest outside, sunkissed by
the elements whereby the clay pot will naturally take in the sun,
wind, minerals from the garden. Eventually it makes its way in, and
then to our dinner table.
The first bite always takes me by surprise! It is so unpretentiously
looking that I always understimate how great it will be! But after
that first bite, I crave one with every dinner! My girlfriend is
Jamaican, and she is hooked too! The texture is nice and crunchy, and
there is a burst of flavor when you bite into it! They pair well with
sticky rice. When it hits your stomach, you feel like you've just
taken a shot of tequila! Now you know how you can get addicted!
Anyhow, that's my spin on peppers! What's your favorite pepper?
Stuffed? Jalapenos? Habaneros? Sweet? Sun-dried? Share!
Min
lesu
peppers. Wrong! I remember my mother's curry being distinctly
different from my father's; hers was subtle and comforting, his, brash
and hot and too much for me to handle. I would watch him bite in to
peppers from the back yard (organic!) and cringe, vowing at all costs
to avoid spicy food, especially anything with resembling one of those
peppers. I had no idea what they were called and did not care.
Now, thirty years later, I find myself taking an interest in these
little...what? Vegetables? Fruits? Plants? Not too many people
like green bell peppers but the sweetness of a red, orange or gold
bell pepper doesn't seem so much like a pepper as fruit. I remember
the first one I roasted, thinking the directions were wrong when it
came time to wrap it in a paper bag and being amazed a while later at
how easily the skin slid off. Tossed with capellini and garlic butter
and requisite Parmesan became one of my favorite effortless meals.
Not long ago, I risked a store-bought jalapeno to try my hand at
guacamole (also, my first foray with limes but that's another story).
It came out nice, so more were purchased at Reading Terminal.
Bam!!!! It completely kicked the guacamole up many notches and helped
bring out the flavor of other ingredients, washed down well with an
ice cold beer. I slowly started adding a slowly to other foods, like
soup; in the winter, it helped create a nice warm glow all around, not
spicy but adding a little heat that was very welcome. Whenever my
knife slices into the skin, I always remember Penelope Cruz in "Woman
On Top" giving a lesson a handling a pepper. Such a great scene!
The jalapeno was a good pepper to start off with in terms of heat.
Everyone knows it and it's found almost everywhere, but my preference
are produce-specific markets; you get more using less. It's time to
move on to a new one but which? As a novice in the pepper world, I am
not ready to emulate my father (like one of my sisters eagerly does
and doesn't bat an eye). But it is interesting to look at the other
assortments out there, recognizing names from recipes, like ancho
chile, and Scotch Bonnets, which I've heard to stay away from unless I
want hair on my chest. Nonetheless, I hope I found a little of the
heat my dad enjoyed.
Kathy
smokey than flat out scorching. Remember the mole I did back at the
Festa di Cioccolato? There were 4 roasted ground peppers in that and
the flavor was not hot and spicy, but smokey and complex. I was
surprised. I'd always expected mole to be fiery. Not long after I made
some goat cheese quenelles rolled in pasilla pepper powder... very
smokey.
My ancestors are Polish/English... we are not pepper people. Growing
up, about the only pepper we ever ate was the green pepper. Raw, I
like them. Cooked, they are not so nice. The crisp green flavor of a
raw bell pepper becomes bitter when it's roasted or cooked. Once I
discovered ripe red bells, I discovered lots of great recipes. I used
to think stuffed peppers were torture, but red bells made it all come
together... stuffed with rice and roasted veggies, or coucous and
lamb.
I've never developed a taste for hot peppers raw... I'm not a
masochist. But, as Lesu points out... they are an indispensible
counterpoint in many recipes. What is guacamole without jalapenos? Or
lentil dal without serranos or thai birds? Or a Philadelphia italian
hoagie without sweet/hots?
What would life be without some heat?
Here is a site that explains what puts the heat in peppers
http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/tcaw/00/may/dong.html
and a link to a "heat meter" and the hot sauces you can buy that
correspond... If you love that demonically fiery pepper flavor.
http://www.pepperworld.com/basics/brenn-o-meter.htm
Kathy
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