Grains of Paradise

Grains of Paradise

I wanted something unusual to add to a food-centric Christmas gift box last year, and one of the employees at The Spice House introduced me to this quirky “peppercorn.”



It’s technically a member of the ginger (Zingiberaceae) family, and goes by a number of different names: Guinea pepper, malaguette, Alligator pepper, malagueta. It was a highly prized spice in the Middle Ages (thus, the name), and is in Moroccan ras al hanout, it’s a flavoring in beers and spirits, including aquavit, and it’s in the Tunisian spice blend galat dagga.



I’ve seen lots of references likening the spice to cardamom, although it’s a completely different flavor to my palate. Amanda Hesser offered some loony description of it in an NYTimes piece in 2004 (“the spice flavor was pleasantly tempered, ripe with flavors reminiscent of jasmine, hazelnut, butter and citrus, and with the kind of oiliness you get from nuts”). Say wha? All I can say is, it’s peppery with a tangy, ginger-like heat, and yeah, maybe slight hit of citrus—oddly similar to yuzu? Or is it piney? Ah, whatever. It’s interesting.

I’m not sure if it’s purely the flavor or partly the foo-foo rarity that’s selling me on this spice, but lately, I’ve been throwing it in everything—meat rubs, chicken or tuna salads, eggs, soup. Mark my words…if restaurants are serving up tasting flights of “artisanal” salt or butter, it’s just a matter of time before “a medley of hand-picked, mortar-ground, lovingly-fondled peppercorns served in a precious glass staircase” shows up on a menu.

To test out the merits of the spice and see if it stands out on its own, I was hoping someone might have suggestions for pepper-heavy dish.

I picked up my own g.o.p. at The Spice House some while back; they're great mixed in with Lampong black peppercorn in my pepper grinder.

Try an au poivre solely with your find. A steak au malaguette as it were.

On one of his shows a few months ago, Alton Brown predicted that Grains of Paradise would be the next hot thing. I also got some at Spice House, and I like them a lot. I have 3 pepper grinders on my table; one with a gourmet blend of regular peppercorns, one with szechuan peppercorns, and one with the GoP, and I use the GoP the most. Like the szechuan, the flavor tends to linger and grow, instead of being all upfront, but it is still a peppercorn type flavor rather than a capsacian flavor. Perhaps closer to the heat of white pepper rather than black, with more complexity.

-Will

Grains of Paradise is also used in Sam Adams Summer Ale, if you want to know how it tastes in beer

WillG wrote:Like the szechuan, the flavor tends to linger and grow, instead of being all upfront, but it is still a peppercorn type flavor rather than a capsacian flavor.

Excellent description of the "burn". It's very much like szechuan--a kind of tingly, lasting impact on the tongue, and not just the wham of black peppercorns.

Speaking of szechuan pepper...is it available everywhere now? A Cantonese friend gave me a teeny bag that her father sent her from China. I've been hoarding it for months now, waiting for the right recipe to come along and thinking I was all badass for having an illegal spice stash.

Yes, irradiated szechuan peppercorns are available everywhere now. You can get 'em at penzey's, the spice house, etc.

Well, at least the ones I have probably aren't irradiated. HaHA! Take that, food police.

Actually, it might be heat treatment and not irradiation. Either way, something's been done to 'em.

Sichuan peppercorns never disappeared up here in Montreal--I can remember the glow I got smuggling them back South of the Border. :^) So I'm not sure that anything new has been done to them, by heat or radiation. They taste pretty much the same to me as they always have.

And yup, I agree: I keep them in their very own grinder, right next to the gourmet blend. I'll have to try the GoP next time I'm by the spice shoppe.

Geo