Helen RandellTasmanian Native Pepper
January 30th 2009 19:15
The Tasmanian native pepper grows as a shrub with dark green leaves and distinctive crimson young stems. The plant bears black fruit, the size of a pea, containing numerous small seeds. These seeds, once cracked have an unusual fragrant, spicy taste and there is something about them which can only be described as 'bushy'.
I thought that as a first run for these guys I should do something simple where the pepper flavouring is prominent. My first though was salt and pepper tofu, but after being given some fresh squid, caught by a friend of ours on the weekend I think I have a better idea. Stay tuned....
| 46 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
I use it all the time - I just love it.
A friend's mum brought it back from Tasmania for me.
Only issue is I find it sweats a little in the glass pepper cracker I have and is harder to crack.
Here is a totally odd Ice Cream Recipe from Tasmania:
NATIVE PEPPERBERRY ICE CREAM
500 mls of full cream milk
5 egg yolks
200 grams of white sugar
1 tablespoon of freeze dried ground pepperberries
¼ vanilla pod
Rind of one orange
Put milk in a saucepan and heat gently. Add the pepperberry powder, vanilla beans scraped out of pod, the pod itself and the orange rind. Heat to combine all the flavours then let cool down a little. Beat egg yolk and sugar together. Add some of the warm milk to the beaten egg and sugar combo to combine and warm up and then add the egg mixture to the milk. Return to the stove and continue to heat, stirring often until the mixture thickens enough to lightly cover the back of the spoon – make sure you do not bring it to a boil.
Remove from heat and strain discarding the solids. Chill in the freezer and then mix in ice cream maker as per instructions for the mixer.
Note: the freeze dried pepper berries are fruitier and have much less heat than the air dried pepper berries. If you made this recipe with ground air dried pepper berries it would be very hot. Also the freeze dried pepper berries make a vibrant purple ice cream whereas the air dried will make a much darker midnight blue coloured ice cream. You could also add the Pepperberries to the custard mixture right at the end of the cooking process, before you chill it. This would probably retain the vibrant colour because I found that, once the pepperberry powder had cooked in the milk mix, it lost some of it’s vibrancy and took on a slightly grayish tinge.
Comment by Helen Randell
Rough Cooking
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
It sounds odd to me - like chilli wine - some things just shouldn't mix!