The “What’s in the Pantry” series of posts is a look at the many bottles of spices and herbs that fill our cabinets over time. Some recipe called for the ingredient one time, and the bottle has sat there since. Let’s look at what they are and how you can use them.
White Pepper
Many of the variants of pepper (black, green, white) all come from the same plant, Piper nigrum. This magical plant gives us the magical little berry, that when cooked and dried, fills the world’s pepper grinders and becomes the Yin to salt’s white Yang.
Where black pepper is made from the unripe berry, white pepper is made from the seeds of the mature fruit. Ripe pepper is soaked to remove the outer flesh, leaving the seed to be dried.
Much of black pepper’s flavor comes from the oil in the berry. This can give pepper the floral and more aromatic properties used in cooking. White pepper is the heat of the berry and can have some earthy notes if it’s fresh.
In Western cooking, white pepper is largely used for aesthetic reasons. It will be called for in some recipes of mashed potatoes or “white” sauces like bechamel or hollandaise. White vs. black pepper was often a friendly point of contention between Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, with the former bemoaning the appearance of “little black specks” in her otherwise perfect dishes.
While the vanity of French cooking is using white pepper for looks, some cuisines use it for flavor. It is quite common in Asian cuisine, especially Chinese cooking and Vietnamese soups. Some Mexican dishes use it in conjunction with black pepper and various chili peppers.
I use it liberally in BBQ rubs, soups, holiday mashed potatoes (when I don’t want the black flecks), on some fish.
Break out the white pepper and try a pinch instead of black pepper today – just be careful: a noseful of the stuff will send you into a sneezing fit.