Ingredient of the day: fresh green peppercorns

Surprises are always nice and lately this little city of Jena has been surprising me, from a culinary standpoint more and more. First farmhouse raw milk cheese, then a great artisan bakery and now this. Last Tuesday, after about six month's time from my last visit, I dropped into a local shop selling mainly Indian goods looking for mustard seeds. I couldn't believe my eyes as I noticed a large shelfful of fresh Asian produce: Thai red shallots, various herbs, a few different Chinese greens and so on. Sadly none of those delicious Thai aubergines, sold out in a matter of hours the shop-keeper said. I bought a few different ingredients but what tempted me the most was the green peppercorns. I like the pickled ones but these looked much better: bright green instead of greyish-green, very pretty all bunched up together. And the taste was even better, brighter, fresher and hotter than the pickled stuff. What to do with them?

The original idea was to use them in a Thai curry or stir-fry. Instead I ended up using most of the peppercorns for green pepper filet. I know, green pepper sauce is a culinary cliche' and filet in pepper sauce is so passe' (hey, it rimes :-)): I'm guilty as charged. But what can I do, I just love it. I find the green pepper, brandy, stock and cream combination great. And if it tastes great with pickled green peppercorns it will sure be better with fresh ones. Indeed it did: the sauce was fresher and the pepper flavour more aromatic, with a cleaner taste. If you're looking for a recipe there's one from Epicurious, here. Mine has two major modifications. I use pork filet, cut into tournedos, instead of filet, because I find the sauce to go better with pork. Also, I reduce the cream to 3 Tbsp: I find too much cream masks flavours. Now that my green pepper sauce curiosity has been satiated I promise: next time I'll resist the temptation and use these beautiful fresh peppercorns for a proper Thai dish.

Comments

[Wena]

wow.. never knew that one can use green peppercorns. Granny has two vines for years and I used to help her pick them. We would separate out the ripe ones from the green ones. Green to make black pepper and ripe ones to make white pepper.

[pim]

Fantastic! I love them. I can never find them fresh in the US, for some odd reason, but they are always around in London Chinatown.

I use them in many things, a particular favorite being a sort of dry curry with pork. I stir fry a bit of Thai red chili paste with some oil, add some sliced pork, cook very quickly, season with fish sauce, add a bit of stock or coconut milk if it gets too dry, then julienned lime leaves, and the very last minute throw in a handful of those little green peppercorn.

Serve with steamed jasmine rice, and don't forget to chew on a pepper or two as you eat the pork.

Yum!

I've got a photo of the dish in one of my blogs about cooking in London.
http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/2004/05/thai_cooking_in.html

cheers,
Pim

[Martine la banlieusarde]

I too was very surprised when I first found fresh green peppercorns at my local supermarket! So surprised, in fact, that I asked around if anybody could confirm it was peppercorns. No one knew, and the boss of the place, with a brave looks on his face, decided to eat one to make sure. His eyes popped out, tears fell down... "Indeed, it is", he said with a good laugh! I told the story here (in French):
http://www.banlieusardises.com/delices/archives/000481.html

[Alberto]

Wena: I'd love to have a pepper vine in my garden (actually I'd love to have a garden first ;-)). How do you make black pepper from the green ones? I read somewhere that there's a fermentation process involved: is it true?

Pim: I knew I had seen a Thai curry with green peppercorns somewhere, I had just forgotten where. Thanks for the recipe! I'll definitely try it out next time.

Martine: Thanks for the link and amusing story, although my french is not that good I think I got most of it. BTW, I'm fascinated by your chicken with green pepper sauce recipe, never tried the sauce on chicken but it sounds delicious.