Field of Science

Spicy suggestions needed

The Phactors host visiting foreign students regularly.  One liked us well enough to return for a visit and she brought us some fancy and rather exotic spices, so how about some suggestions on how to use a couple of these items.  First are peri peri peppers, which is doubly redundant because peri peri means "pepper pepper" literally, but probably better translated as "little pepper", which they are, one of the many varieties of little, often appallingly hot "bird" peppers so-called because birds disperse them.  The Phactors have quite an array of chili peppers around but mostly of the Tex-Mex sort, so peri peris are rather new.  Another spice, and a new one on our lengthy life list, is cinnamon flowers, which can also be called cassia buds, but then again cassia is a type of cinnamon. So this is either a flower bud or very young fruit.  They look rather like cloves, which is also a flower bud, but they are even harder.  An exploratory chew found them to be a hot, spicy, cinnamony, and sweet, sort of like a red-hot candy.  So what do you do with them? 

1 comment:

The Cranky said...

Both are really good combined with lemongrass and basil...trying substituting them for the peppers called for in Thai dishes and some African dishes.

The latter one would be extremely good in a peanut sauce.