Put away your basic pepper shaker and explore the savory experience
Sit down for a meal at almost any table in the good ol’ US of A and you’re likely to find a shaker of salt and a shaker of pepper. Black pepper has been an underappreciated part of our dining experience for most of our lives, in spite of its empire toppling, global altering history.
Yet we hardly give it a second thought; rarely stepping outside the confines of that little red and white metal tin to explore the varieties and flavor families beyond basic black.
The spice aisle of every grocery store in town has a small selection of the bestselling ground pepper, whole peppercorns, and fancy sounding blends that the suits at “big-spice” want you to believe represent the whole of the pepper world.
Today we will stand up and say NO to big spice, NO to plain ol’ black pepper, and YES to all the flavors and all the peppers they’ve been hiding from us for too long. Rise up! Knowledge is power!
The Basics
Black pepper: Unripe drupes of the pepper plant piper nigrum get briefly cooking or sun-dried until they shrink and darken into the wrinkled black thing we know as a black peppercorn.
White pepper: Same plant as black pepper, but the drupes are soaked in water until the skins are soft enough to be removed. This prevents the dark color from forming.
Green peppercorns: Black pepper berries picked before they’ve had a chance to ripen and sold without being cooked or dried. Popular in French cuisine (think steak au poivre), while fresh clusters are often added to SE Asian stir fried dishes.
Intermediate
Grains of Paradise / Alligator pepper: Both alligator pepper and grains of paradise come from the same plant, but grains of paradise are just the seeds while alligator pepper includes the whole pod.
This relative of ginger and cardamom has a woody aroma and a flavor that starts with a peppery punch, followed by faint hints of clove, cinnamon, and cardamom. It’s more complex and less intense than black pepper with a full-bodied heat that doesn’t burn, but rather lingers like warm candlelight.
Grains of paradise seem like the most versatile spice you’ve never heard of. Salad dressings, sauces, gingerbread, vegetables, meat and seafood can all benefit from its complex flavor.
I recommend layering their flavor in by adding some during cooking, then finishing with a bit more just before serving to highlight their full range of flavors.
Long pepper: Black pepper’s more interesting second cousin, twice removed. Long pepper tastes more like a blend than an individual spice, binging black pepper’s heat and earthiness, but with sweetening notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.
I use it as a more complex and interesting substitution for black pepper, mixing it with chilis in spice blends or pounding it into Thai chili pastes and dipping sauces to help mute strong flavors of game, fish and other seafood.
Advanced
Sichuan pepper: While these are called “peppers” they are not related to black pepper or chili peppers. They’re actually the dried outer husks of the prickly ash shrub native to the Sichuan province of China.
When you bite into a Sichuan pepper, you’ll get a mild buzzing, followed by a numbing sensation similar to touching your tongue to a 9-volt battery.
This is thanks to sanshool—a chemical relative of capsaicin in spicy peppers, piperine in black pepper, and gingerol in ginger. Sanshool creates confusing signals from the tongue that hyper-stimulate your mouth, particularly when combined with hot peppers, ginger, and black pepper.
Sichuan peppers are very aromatic, often compared to lavender and citrus. They aren’t spicy in and of themselves but when married with chilis, the numbing effect helps reduce the chili’s heat so the fruity flavors of the chilis can shine through.
Sichuan peppers are at the heart of classic Szechuan dishes like mapo tofu and Sichuan lamb with cumin, but my favorite combines them with some of the peppers mentioned above in a rub that will make you rise up against big-spice and their bland pepper agenda.
Resist!
Mike’s Pepper Blend
- 3 parts black peppercorns (Tellicherry preferred)
- 2 parts long pepper
- 1 part green peppercorns
- 1 part Sichuan peppercorns
- 1 part Grains of Paradise
- 1 part dried minced garlic
- 1 part Maldon salt or sel gris
Toast the Tellicherry, long, Sichuan, and Grains of Paradise peppercorns in a dry pan until they begin to release an intoxicating aroma.
Add the toasted peppers and remaining ingredients to a mortar and pestle and grind into the desired consistency.
Sprinkle or rub on everything.
Mike McJunkin is a native Chattanoogan currently living abroad who has trained chefs, owned and operated restaurants. Join him on Facebook at facebook.com/SushiAndBiscuits