Latest news with #pepper
CBS News
01-07-2025
- General
- CBS News
Why are salt and pepper the top seasonings?
It's a pairing so perfect that their names have come to symbolize dynamic duos. They're a staple from restaurant tables to kitchen tables. Customers entering Eggy's Diner might not yet know what they're going to order, but you can guarantee waiting for them at every table is the quintessential Yin and Yang of the spice world -- salt and pepper. Vince Henry skips the salt. "It would have to be a really bland meal for me to salt up something, I don't use salt too much," he said, adding that he leans on salt's zesty counterpart. "Just always been in the habit of using pepper. It gives it that little snap without really spice." While he keeps it simple, Chef Mary Matthews embraces the vast flavors and colors these two seasonings offer. "I am a salt and pepper nerd," Matthews said as she surveyed roughly a dozen different salts and peppers from her kitchen cabinet. Matthews teaches at the Way Cool Cooking School in Eden Prairie. Why are salt and pepper the top seasonings? "Rumor has it we do as the royals do," said Matthews. Food historians say that King Louis XIV was a picky eater who shunned most spices, except for two. "What he did always have at this table was salt and pepper," said Matthews. Salt had long been a table staple going back thousands of years, but spices like pepper were considered a luxury during the Louis XIV's reign in 17th century since it came from southeast Asia. "And as that spread through nobility, it spread through Europe and it spread over to the age of discovery and here (in the U.S)," said Matthews. The contrast in color is echoed in their uses. Salt enhances flavors, tenderizes meat and brings out moisture. Pepper adds warmth, depth and some spice. How can we best use salt? Matthews highlights three steps. First, use salt as your preparing the meal to take moisture out of the food and make it easier to cook and season. Next, season as you're cooking while making sure to taste the food along the way. Lastly, finish the meal with a coarser salt to make the flavors pop. Matthews uses salt flakes in particular as she's plating a meal. "That doesn't mean to add a tablespoon of salt three different times to your meal, but just adjusting and tasting as you go," she said. How can we best use pepper? "If you want a milder pepper flavor, I recommend using a white ground pepper, or green pepper corn because they're fresher," she said. "Also, invest in a grinder since grinding pepper yourself will better bring out its oils and aroma." If you could add a third seasoning to the group to make it a trio, what would you add? After joking that it would be like asking her to pick her favorite child or pet, Matthews said pick a seasoning you would consider your "signature move." Options that come to mind for her include cumin, coriander, paprika and garlic powder. Each add a new dimension of flavor, but it's fair to say salt and pepper's destiny will remain as a duo.
Telegraph
23-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
A chilli-head's guide to hot sauce: what to buy and when to use it
There's no guaranteed heat in a British summer, but our national craving for hot sauce is both certain and growing. In the last year, Tesco sold an extra 2.5 million bottles of the condiment – a rise of almost 20 per cent. Sales of sriracha, for example, were up by nearly 65 per cent and those of Encona West Indian pepper sauce – available on supermarkets shelves since the 1980s – rose by over 28 per cent last year. Demand has led to a boom in both supply and spread of these fiery sauces: independent online food market Delli lists over 100 different varieties; celebrities have their own (Ed Sheeran's XXXtra sauce, the latest in his Tingly Ted's range, sold out two weeks after launch); some even crop up in fine-dining settings. Chef Rodney Wages, owner of the Michelin-starred Avery restaurant in Edinburgh, gives diners bottles of house-made hot sauce as a souvenir. While hot sauce is being served over buckets of fried chicken this summer on the manicured lawns of Scottish luxury hotel Gleneagles. Nando's hot sauces might make up half of Tesco's 10 bestsellers, but there's plenty out there beyond peri peri… Skip to: How to use hot sauce The hot sauce taste test The hot sauce spectrum There's no official definition for hot sauce, so almost anything goes: 'As long as you've got chillies in it, you can call it hot sauce,' says Jamie Cleland, maker of Big Jim's Kitchen. With chilli peppers, and often vinegar and salt at their core, you might also spy fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices in the mix – yielding sauces that are smoky, fruity, a slow burn or blow-your-head-off bold. Variety is what makes this condiment so compelling. '[It's] like the second coming of craft beer, with interesting labels and weird and wonderful flavour combinations,' says Cleland. 'Customers aren't just buying a condiment,' says Delli's head of brand, Octavia Pendrill-Adams. 'They're investing in a story, a flavour and a community.' Sriracha, a relatively mild Thai sauce derived from chillies (often jalapenos), distilled vinegar and pickled garlic, is driving the trend, thanks to its distinctive 'deep, fermented flavour which, along with lots of sugar and salt, makes it very addictive,' explains Liam White, founder of Dr Will's, which includes a squeezy sriracha in its range of condiments. Then there are buffalo sauces (hot, rich and creamy to slather over charred meat), and bottles bearing named chillies which each deliver a different heat profile. 'Cayenne will give you a quick tickle or sizzle of heat at the front of your mouth,' explains Zoe Simons, senior brand development chef for Waitrose. 'More lingering, flavourful heat mid-palate comes from spices like jalapeno, gochujang and chipotle – and habanero and ghost peppers both have a delayed intensity for that back-of-the-throat kick.' 'When we started in 2014, it was all about heat for heat's sake,' says Pam Digva, co-founder of Nottingham's Sauce Shop. 'A blisteringly hot sauce may be fun, but often sits at the back of the cupboard gathering dust. We lacto-ferment all our chillies [leaving them in brine] to create depth of flavour, and focus on using the sauce in more ways.'
South China Morning Post
20-06-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
Where does pepper come from? All about the spice, plus a delicious pepper crab recipe
Of all the spices, pepper is probably the most ubiquitous. Green peppercorns, white peppercorns and black peppercorns come from the same plant – the Piper nigrum vine. The stage at which they are picked and how they are processed determines the colour. The green peppercorn is the unripe fruit and it can be used fresh, dried or pickled. It is aromatic and hot, but not as strong as black or white peppercorns. Black peppercorns are also unripe, but the fruit has been processed, fermented and dried in a way that develops the flavour – making it more pungent than the green variety – and turns the exterior black and wrinkled. Green peppercorns are the unripe fruit of the Piper nigrum vine. Photo: Shutterstock White peppercorns are made from the fully ripe fruit, which is processed and the exterior removed, leaving only the white core. White pepper is the strongest and hottest of the three, and a little goes a long way. It is used in pale sauces, where the dark specks from ground black pepper would be unsightly. The Piper nigrum vine can also yield red peppercorns – which should not be mistaken for pink peppercorns as those come from a different plant – but these are very rare.
