Seasoning Explained
There are two main times to think about seasoning – the beginning and the end. For slow cooked dishes it’s a good idea to get some salt and pepper in early so they can spread through the whole dish over time. For most other foods seasoning at the end is the best way to go.
Pepper Piper nigrum
Pepper is a source of piperine, (the main component in pepper ) which cause mild irritation and inflammation in the mouth when consumed. That inflammation leads to additional sensitivity of our taste receptors. Saltiness, acidity (i.e., sourness), and feelings of hot and cold are generally the most impacted by this inflammation; all of these sensations are enhanced.
Salt Sodium chloride
Salt is one of the five basic tastes (along with bitter, sweet, sour, and umami or savory). It enhances foods by essentially turning up the volume of their salty flavours. Salt can also dial down the taste of bitter foods by suppressing our perception of bitterness, and balance other tastes like sweet and sour (salt added to desserts or vinaigrettes, for example). Salt also unravels (or denatures) the tight spiral structure of proteins, making their flavors tastier and more aromatic.
Even the texture of salt enhances the taste of food. Flake salts like Maldon or ground Himalayan Rock Salt (our favourite) sprinkled over a green salad transmit crunchy bursts of saltiness that enhance the soft texture and mild flavors of lettuce leaves and other vegetables. And surprisingly, salt brings out aromas, too, because it helps release aroma molecules from food into the air. These stimulate our olfactory receptors, helping us to smell things.
So Pepper wakes up our taste buds and adds sensitivity to our taste receptors. Salt can then do its job of turning up the volume of salty food or turning down the volume of bitter tasting foods.
Kampot Pepper (the Worlds best Pepper) keeps your taste buds awake longer than any other Pepper, allowing you to enjoy the taste of food for longer.
And a big Bonus, your average peppercorn has very little flavour, Kampot Pepper reveals outstanding floral, eucalyptus and citrus flavours unlike any other pepper, further enhancing your food flavours.
Rick Stein on Black Pepper from Kampot, Cambodia
For the food connoisseur - Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey
The odyssey begins in Cambodia - a country still recovering from the horrific regime of the Khmer Rouge. Nevertheless, tourists (and not just back-packing gap year students) are beginning to return to this land dotted with sugar palms, paddy fields and small villages.
Rick discovers the joys of freshly caught swimmer crabs cooked with the green peppercorns from Kampot, once the king of pepper. He learns how to cook the most famous dish in the country, Fish Amok, made with lemongrass and coconut and he samples Lok Lak, an extremely popular and delicious dish made with stir-fried strips of marinated beef.
The famous English seafood chef, Rick Stein, commented that “the pepper has a fabulous depth of flavour, aroma and pepperiness”.
Kampot Pepper Features on BBC Saturday Kitchen
Michel Roux delivers a fiery pepper steak for Davina McCall which she absolutely loves.
The recipe is available here and the iPlayer Episode is available here We recommend trying this with our mixed Kampot Pepper use Black, Red and White in equal quantities. Buy it Now