Produce
Bell pepper
Also called capsicum, sweet pepper, bell peppers, capsicums
The generic mill: mixed peppercorns, or unspecified “pepper” on a recipe card, as opposed to black-pepper, which is specifically dried ripe Piper nigrum. Mixed jars usually combine black, white, green and sometimes pink (Schinus).
Origin
Black, white and green peppercorns are the same South Indian vine at different harvests; pink pepper is a New World relative. Database recipes that just say “pepper” inherited a European table mill, not a capsicum.
Flavour
A blend reads broader than straight black pepper: white is hotter and muskier, green herbal, pink sweet-resinous. Together they are pine, heat and perfume.
How it is made
Berries are picked green or fully ripe, then dried (black), soaked and skinned (white), or preserved (green). Mixed pots are blended after that.
How to use it
Crack mixed peppercorns fresh; grey dust is a duller ingredient. Use the blend for rounded heat — stews, roasted roots, a steak — and the black-pepper mill when a recipe is built on that one aroma, as carbonara is. White pepper belongs in pale sauces; green peppercorns in brine are for creamy pan sauces, rinsed first. Do not fry ground pepper in ripping-hot oil; it scorches.
Storage
Whole mixed peppercorns in an airtight mill, away from the hob. Ground pepper stales in weeks.
Recipes using it
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