Épices de Cru Long Pepper

£15.00

In a nutshell: Popular with the ancient Greeks and Romans, our complex, fruity Indonesian long pepper can be used for all sorts of Asian curries roast game and meat diishes.

A surprising pepper of exceptional quality, with a complex and fruity fragrance. Long pepper (Piper longum), also known as pippali, is part of the same botanical family that gives us green, white, and black peppers (piper nigrum). Grown on the Indonesian island of Java, our long pepper is less acrid, sweeter and fruitier than varieties grown in India or China.  Very popular with the ancient Greeks and Romans who praised it's cooking and medicinal qualities, it is now regaining popularity in the hearts of pepper fans after centuries of neglect. Popular in Ethiopian and Moroccan cuisine where it is used in the ras el hanout spice mix, long pepper is also a key ingredient in Indonesian and Malaysian cooking. Added  to traditional bumbus, which are the aromatic curry pastes made from dry and fresh spices, a little like Thai curry pastes. Long pepper is a delightful addition to your pepper collection and you can grind it into soups and stews or grate it with a microplane grater over roasts or game dishes. It can also be used to elevate many desserts. We like to grind it over our stir-fried rice, vanilla ice cream with strawberries and add to Coronation chicken.

Details 50g

About Épices de Cru
Épices de Cru began in 1982 as a catering partnership between Philippe and Ethné de Vienne. Their mission was a kind of “cooking pot anthropology:” learning the secrets of family cooking around the world and applying these techniques to the needs of hungry Montrealers. The secret, they learned, was spices. Over the last two decades, Philippe and Ethné have searched for the world’s best spices, accompanied by their children, Marika and Arik. The de Viennes believe in direct sourcing spices: visiting growing regions, spending time with growers, and developing personal relationships that last decades. In 2004, they officially opened their first spice shop in Montreal’s fantastic Jean Talon market– it’s since become a mecca for foodies from all over the world. I first visited in 2008 and have been buying and using their spices on a regular basis ever since that first exciting visit. They steadfastly maintain that they do nothing original, only facilitating the exchange of culinary common sense from one place to another. But, what they do is simply quite brilliant - by providing us with the finest quality ingredients, and their superb spice mixes, we can all experiment with unusual spices and recreate delicious recipes from around the world.