Your experiences with Various Ground Peppercorns and How

Last night I wrangled myself (from my local market's fish case) some wild salmon and prepared it very simply (baked, small amount of olive oil, butter, and sea salt).
But I have this large collection of various peppercorns that my mother gave me for Christmas, from which I plucked one to lavish upon the fish.
I used a Moula from Hungary (better known as Monks Berry, or Chaste Berries--and is not really a peppercorn at all, though has close enough properties, like "pink peppercorns," to be considered by many to be a veritable proxy, which may or may not be an oxymoron).
The little note that accompanies each peppercorn describes this one in particular as having the resemblance in palatable structure to a fine aged wine. I don't know what this exactly means--but it was rather musty and had a wonderful tangy earthiness to it that I just felt it put the fish in another realm altogether. The dish had a complexity I'd never have experienced with plain old black pepper. It got me very excited about experimenting with other peppers (be they true peppercorns or not).
Anyone else?

A trick I learned back when cooking in restuarants and which applies to many other spices but peppercorns especially, take a nice handful of tri-color peppercorns and give them a good pan toasting in a hot skillet until they start to pop and smoke a little. Take off the flame and put in a spice grinder for a rough chop. Do only as much as you need for a few days as the flavor will diminish over time. The toasting will amplify the flavors and adds a bit of a nutty quality. Great on salads or grilled meat or fish

The Spice House on Wells can provide you with a multitude of pepper variations and their genesis. For instance, what we call "black pepper" is merely a berry dried with the rind on. "White pepper" is the exact same berry, only with the rind and fleshy portion washed off before drying. They can provide the tri-pepper blend mentioned previously, either whole or ground to your liking. thespicehouse.com is their website if you want to peruse, but walking into the shop is a treat in and of itself...

Ahhh...my beloved Spice House: their white peppercorn (to me) tastes like a roadhouse toilet smells...rank...

whereas my friend's cousin's India-farmed similar is mild, sublime, perfumed, with a kick...

The Spice House's Lampong black peppercorn's become my default, tho' I enliven it with grains of paradise and the occasional Balinese longpeppercorn(the pepper grinder ain't too fond of the latter).

I also recently began experimenting with their organic Ecuadorian small batch peppercorns. A might hotter than the Lampong, but not leagues beyond.

Pink "peppercorns" are best used in moderation...they can easily overwhelm any cream sauce(much like nutmeg)

and sichuan "peppercorns" of course belong in a class unto themselves

out of all these "unusual" peppercorns...the one's I haven't bothered with are the Telicherry...

ParkerS wrote:It got me very excited about experimenting with other peppers (be they true peppercorns or not).
Anyone else?

Though not related to peppercorns, my latest condiment obsession is with sansho or Japanese pepper. I had it for the first time very recently at Katsu. One of the hosts brought it out to me to put on my eel. He explained that I should sprinkle just a small amount. Because I was a little self-conscious with him standing over me and watching, I got too enthusiastic with shaking the small bottle. When I looked up at the host with an "oops!" expression on my face, my fish buried under the pepper, he just smiled and said, "That's OK. It's not poison."

Anyway, my office is having a popcorn party this Friday, and my plan is to contribute a sansho-flavored batch.

Christopher Gordon wrote:
out of all these "unusual" peppercorns...the one's I haven't bothered with are the Telicherry...

If you've ever used whole peppercorns from a normal grocery store or bulk from Costco, you've used tellicherry peppers.

jsimonson0 wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:
out of all these "unusual" peppercorns...the one's I haven't bothered with are the Telicherry...

If you've ever used whole peppercorns from a normal grocery store or bulk from Costco, you've used tellicherry peppers.

Yes, of this I'm aware...and no I have never bought bulk black peppercorns(of divers provenances) from anywhere but The Spice House.

This is not to say I look askance at tellicherry, but when in the presence of such a plethora of options, I tend to the unusual...and I like black pepper at the hotter end of the spectrum.