Pro-Pantry #3: Peppercorns

Nate Whiting-  Hi everyone, welcome to another edition of the Hot Dogs and Caviar Pro-Pantry series: where we outline ingredients every serious pantry needs.  But more than that, we show how professionals select, buy, use, and generally relate to a specific ingredient.  Today, I'm gonna take you through the world's single most popular, and yet overlooked, spice: black pepper.


If I had to choose, I'd say the one thing that I hope to teach/emphasize to any cook is thoughtfulness. Better cooking does not take more work, it simply requires a little more thought. Slow down, and consciously choose your ingredients, as opposed to mindless reaching for them. Slow down and think about the technique before you start, so you can apply it with purpose and care. Focus not just on what you're doing, but why you're doing it.

If you start with quality ingredients, and you prepare them with care, no matter what you're making, I assure you, it will never be a failure! Worst case scenario is that something you tried didn't work, but if you were thoughtful and careful, at least now you know it doesn't work. Any experiment you can learn from is a successful experiment.

As I've said time and again, ingredient selection is as critical a decision as any you make in the kitchen. It doesn't do to mindlessly reach for ingredients. Every component of a dish, and every element of a component, must be chosen thoughtfully and deliberately. This goes from the main ingredient all the way down to the most seemingly insignificant spice.

Which brings us to pepper. Pepper is a rare bird. How can one of the most common spices also be one of the most overlooked? It seems like a paradox, but it makes sense, when you think about it. Pepper is so thoughtlessly applied that some chefs make their cooks pre-mix salt and pepper, as if each item needed the same ratio of the two. Pepper is the only spice we put in a shaker on a table, or have waiters mindlessly crack over salads until a diner (who, mind you, hasn't even tasted the salad) says 'when.' This is pretty shabby treatment for one of the most powerful, versatile, savory, and necessary spices in the culinary arsenal. And yet we continue to reach for it mindlessly.

This culinary staple is so common it's taken for granted, yet so scared it has a special place right on the dining room table. It's really very puzzling to me.  If you're reading this I assume you're at least mildly interested in cooking, so if you want to level up your cooking kung fu, follow these simple guidelines:

  • Step One: Throw away the pre-ground/store-bought pepper. Never buy it again.

    • Peppercorns get their telltale bite from a chemical called piperine, that's found in the fruit and seed of the peppercorn. Piperine breakdowns when exposed to prolonged heat, humidity, and light, so peppercorns and ground pepper should be stored properly and used quickly. Oh, and you can ditch that pepper shaker, too, while you're at it.

  • Step Two: Buy a pepper mill, and always buy whole peppercorns.

    • Peppermills are one of man's most ancient tools. Mills I recommend are Unicorn, Atlas, and Peugeot, to name a few. There are hundreds of kinds of pepper mills, and honestly, any fresh ground pepper is better than the pre-ground doodoo. Even the kind that comes in the disposable peppermill is a major upgrade, and will work fine in a pinch. But we're all  thoughtful cooks here, so buy your own mill.  

    • If you use a lot of black pepper, say, for example, you're a pro in a restaurant or a high-volume BBQ guru and using the mill just isn't practical, I get it. I wouldn't want to hand-mill either, with that kind of volume. A  $20 Krups electric coffee grinder is a pretty great spice grinder. Be sure to clean it with plenty of salt to wipe out aromas from spice to spice. Alternatively, a Vitamix or other high powered blender is a more expensive route, but excellent nonetheless. Just be sure to clean the pitcher with salt, or the next thing you puree may be surprisingly peppery.

    • For God's sake, if you need to grind in bulk, don't go too overboard, just what you need for a few days. Pepper starts losing its potency fast.
  • Step Three: Toast your spices. It's a lost art. I don't know why people don't do this anymore! {Indian cooks do! -js} It only takes a minute or two, and greatly improves the aromas by “waking up” the essential oils. And if someone counters with; won't the spices get toasted while they cook? Answer is yes they will, in a dry pan, but not with anything moist, so yes, that's an inferior shortcut. Just do it, Chef.

    • Pop the spices (anything whole) in a dry cold pan, place it over medium to high heat and gently and purposefully move the pan and spices around the heat until they begin to smell fragrant. Thats it! You are now way ahead of most cooks in the flavor department. Allow them to cool before loading up the mill or grinding.



For the Nerds, some botany:
  • Black pepper  (piper nigrum, pictured at the head of this post) is native to Malabar, a tropical region on the western coast of Southern India. It is now extensively cultivated there, as well as in nearly every other tropical region in the world. Vietnam is now the world's largest producer. The pepper is a flowering vine, cultivated for its fruit. The small round, berry-like fruits (known as “drupes”) grow in clusters called “spikes”.  A dried drupe is known as a “peppercorn”.  Depend­ing on harvest time and pro­cessing, pepper­corns can be black, white, green, or red. 

  • All true pepper is from the piper nigrum plant. They are usually sundried, but can also be oven-dried, in a process that leaves the outer layer (the pericarp) oxidized and black.

  • The peppercorn is essentially a dried berry. The drying process starts a reaction that creates piperine, the active ingredient.

  • From there, differences in age, terroir, and level of processing can lead to wide variations in pepper flavor.


Black, white, and green peppercorns are all the same fruit but treated differently.

  • Black peppercorns are dried, unripe fruits.

  • White peppercorns are only the seeds of the dried, ripe fruits (pericarp removed via blanching and other methods).

  • Green peppercorns are dried, unripe fruits that been preserved through flash-freezing, curing, or brining in order to preserve their color and flavor.

  • Red peppercorns are particularly special. When the peppercorn clusters are ready for harvest, a few of the berries will turn blush red. The ripe fruit is separated by hand, before they are sun dried.


  • Pink peppercorns cause a bit of confusion, as they’re technically not peppercorns at all! They come from a tree called the Peruvian pepper tree, and are actually more closely related to cashews and other types of tree nuts as opposed to peppercorns. (A heads up! Those with nut allergies should avoid pink peppercorns!


Now to really get serious: My two favorite black beppercorns
  • Kampot pepper is named after its region of production, Kampot in Cambodia, much in the same way Prosciutto di Parma and Champagne are. This is the first Cambodian product to receive protection status from the European Union and the French appellation d'origine contrôlée (protected geographical indication). They are truly remarkable, especially the red ones. They contain both fruity-floral aromas and subtle heat. The black are more earthy and the red are more jasmine-like. 

  • My other favorite is Sarawak. From the island of Borneo in Malaysia, these medium-sized peppercorns have a woodsy and resinous character, with notes of bright tropical fruit.


So what should the reader do with this knowledge?
  • Experiment! Think about what you like to do with pepper. Season a steak, give a green salad a little pop, overload your Memphis-style barbecue sauce, or give a mysterious sparkle to some sauteed strawberries you're about to serve over ice cream with torn mint leaves. Enliven your mushroom pasta, or give identity to your cacio e pepe, or make your fried chicken dredge come alive! Sprinkle some on some raw, perfectly ripe tomatoes from your garden, along with a little crunchy salt and good olive oi.
  • Then, whatever you decide to do, try a couple of different peppers out. You'll find that there will be applications where certain peppers really shine. Conversely, you'll find that there will be certain applications where you can't tell the difference at all. But the point is, you'll be doing these things deliberately, thoughtfully, and you'll never look at that red-and-white McCormick can, ever again.
  • A great source for various peppercorns, if you don't have a good spice shop in your city, is Chicago's The Spice House. They run a great mail order business, and they have EVERYTHING.


Have fun, and get after it!

-NW

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