Archive for the ‘Spices & herbs’ Category
Storing Spices & Herbs
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009How to Buy Spices?
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009The first step in getting the best out of your spices, herbs, salt and sugar is like in everything to buy well.
This can best be summed up as:
(i) Buy the best you can afford – price is generally a pretty good indication of quality as long as the packaging is not too fancy. We are often told that Steenbergs spices are expensive, but quality will out and that’s what we are about and not purely price – however, Steenbergs spices & herbs a good value product. But even then, you do not need much spice or dried herb in each meal – may be a pinch or two – and you are going to get a lot of use out of a 50g (2oz) pack of spices and its going to cost you less and last a lot longer than a bottle of wine or a smoothie or a bar of chocolate.
(ii) Buy little and often – bulk buying of spices and herbs is rarely worth it in the end. How many of us have had to clear out those old packs of spices & herbs that lurk in the corners of your cupboards, or bought that extra pack of dill seed because we could not find it hidden in the back of a cupboard or did not know whether we had some back home. So you should buy as much (or as little) as you think you are going to use in a 12 month period, or the smallest pack size that you can find.
(iii) Buy a good brand from a reputable retailer – it’s no different from buying good quality vegetables, fish, meat or wine. Unless you really know what you are doing and have the time & energy, few of us are going to start a small-holding and prepare all our foods ourselves, and like all foods, quality comes down to good stocking.
Only the specialists and larger outlets are going to be able to source the good quality products and get the stock turn right. So chose a well-known specialist brand and buy online or find a decent local stockist, whether it’s a large delicatessen or a multiple grocer.
Next you should check that the packaging can look after the aroma and flavour of the spices and herbs. Don’t fall for the romantic notion of buying spices and herbs from the exotic bazaar in Cairo or Istanbul or for scooping out your spices from bulk bins, as most of the best quality spices & herbs are bought and sold in Europe and North America.
Natural Sea Salt
Thursday, June 4th, 2009Salt is important – for health and our culture. Loyalty, friendship and bargains are sealed with salt in the Middle East. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans included salt in sacrifices and offerings.
Carrying salt to a new home is a British tradition – in 1789, when Robert Burns moved to a new house in Ellisland, he was escorted there by his relatives carrying a bowl of salt.
Salt in history
The Chinese started making salt in Sichuan from 3000BC; Li Bing ordered the drilling of the first brine wells in 252BC. The Ancient Egyptians made salt by evapourating seawater from the Nile Delta, using it for preserving fish and birds and in mummification.
The word “salary” comes from the Roman word for salt, “salarium”. However, while no-one quite knows the origin of this, Pliny The Elder wrote in Naturalis Historia that “[i]n Rome. . .the soldier’s pay was originally salt and the word salary derives from it. . .” (finished in AD 77).
But it is the Celts or Gauls who were the first “salt people”. They founded the first salt towns – Halle sits on an East German salt bed, while Hallein and Swäbish Hall and Hallstatt in Austria have the same linguistic root as Galicia in Spain and Portugal. The Celtic society was founded on salt mining, trading it to the far ends of Europe at the same time as spreading Celtic culture.
Nowadays, most salt is made industrially by injecting water into rock salt deposits, which dissolves the salt, or by taking sea-water. These brines are then filtered and evapourated by boiling. The resultant salt may then be bleached to remove any yellow/grey colour in the salt crystals. Anti-caking chemicals are then added to the salt to make it free-flowing. These industrial salts have an uncomplicated salt (or pure sodium chloride) taste.
Salt & Health
Salt is responsible for maintaining water balance, blood pressure and is essential for muscle and nerve activity – sodium is needed to transport nutrients and oxygen, transmit nerve impulses and move muscles. An adult human contains around 250g of salt, but is constantly losing it through natural bodily functions. In fact, it’s as if we (together with all animals) have brought the sea with us to enable us all to survive on land.
But too much may increase the chances of high blood pressure, heart disorders and kidney disease – the average UK adult eats 8 – 15kg of salt per day.
Nowadays, salt (even sea salt) is refined – bleached to change its colour from yellow to white and made free-running through anti-caking agents (such as magnesium carbonate, calcium silicate or sodium hexacyanoferrate II). Anti-caking agents cloud brines and distort flavours – we notice this especially in bread and pastry.
So if like us, you feel that our daily food is already pretty unnatural and overprocessed without your salt also being tampered with, you should go for old-fashioned, slow-harvested sea salt.
Portuguese sea salts
In the Algarve in the middle of the Nature Reserve Ria Formosa, there is still a tradition of salt harvesting. While not as well known as that from Britanny, perhaps, we feel that it produces whiter crystals and a mellower flavour, with a wonderful bouquet of trace elements lacking in other sea salts. Ria Formosa is home to flamingos, storks and other salt birds as well as brine shrimp and microalgae.
Traditional salt is produced in salinas (salt marshes and salt-pans). After being submerged all winter, the salina is reborn in April when it is filled with concentrated sea water (at 150g of salts per litre), which still contains all trace minerals.
In mid-May, as the sun heats up the salina, the seawater concentration rises to 250g of salts per litre and our sea salt starts to crystallise. As soon as this starts, the salt pan is topped up with more seawater to keep the process going.
By June, the salt-pans are ready for harvesting. This is done with real care to avoid mixing the bottom clay with the salt and so keeping the sea salts naturally white. After being hand-harvested, this traditional sea salt is sun-dried for 5 days maximising its magnesium and iodine content.
The Fleur de Sel – the gourmet product favoured in France – is collected from the surface of the pan like cream from milk. The salt-workers gently harvest this thin layer of salt as it crystallizes on the surface of the water before sun-drying. Fleur de sel has a trace element bouquet that highlights food flavours and crumbles easily between the fingers.
We have done chemical analysis of our salts (see below for details) to show the levels of minerals retained through sun drying.
Other great salts
In Britain, there is a choice of wonderful sea salts that have been produced through small-scale industrial evapouration. Maldon Sea Salt is without a doubt one of the culinary icons in the world, and is still being produced by a family run business in Essex and they are lovely people. Newer contenders include Anglesey Sea Salt and Cornish Sea Salt.
I know I am a Luddite but there is something much more beautiful about sun-dried salt that has been slowly cared for and dried, rather than industrially evapourated sea salts made in stainless steel vats.
Chemical analysis of Steenbergs natural sea salt
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Branded sea salt |
Branded low salt |
Steenbergs fleur de sel |
Steenbergs sea salt |
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Overview analysis |
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NaCl |
98.5% |
32.6% |
84.8% |
91.0% |
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Water |
0.1% |
0.1% |
6.3% |
4.5% |
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Detailed analysis |
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Iron |
6mg/kg |
641mg/kg |
30mg/kg |
5mg/kg |
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Calcium |
138mg/kg |
293mg/kg |
837mg/kg |
1,585mg/kg |
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Magnesium |
1,828mg/kg |
90mg/kg |
5,116mg/kg |
5,071mg/kg |
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Iodide |
23mg/kg |
23mg/kg |
21mg/kg |
22mg/kg |
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Potassium |
463mg/kg |
141mg/kg |
2,014mg/kg |
1,719mg/kg |
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Sulphate |
57mg/kg |
852mg/kg |
7,645mg/kg |
10,027mg/kg |
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Nitrates |
2,348mg/kg |
2,527mg/kg |
1,867mg/kg |
2,422mg/kg |
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Nitrites |
1.4mg/kg |
1.4mg/kg |
1.6mg/kg |
1.6mg/kg |
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Chlorides |
985g/kg |
992g/kg |
847g/kg |
910g/kg |
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Anti-caking agents |
Yes(i) |
Yes(ii) |
No |
No |
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(i) Magnesium carbonate and sodium hexacyanoferrate II (ii) Magnesium carbonate |
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Vanilla – The Temperamental Diva
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009A brief history of vanilla
Vanilla – the fruit of a perennial, climbing orchid – was discovered by the Totanac Indians in Mexico. They developed the process of fermenting the pods which brings out vanilla’s natural flavour components.
When the Aztecs conquered the Totanacs, they were so enchanted by the aroma and flavour of vanilla that they forced their new subjects to grow the beans for them as tribute to the Emperor.
Vanilla beans were used as an aphrodisiac, a herbal remedy and as a medium of exchange. Most critically, however, they were used as the flavouring for a blend of powdered cacao beans, ground corn and honey – this became the legendary xocaotl, the “legend of the gods”.
Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador, became the first European to taste xocaotl when he was offered it by Emperor Moctezuma II in 1519 in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Cortés was so enchanted by the aroma and flavour that he killed Moctezuma and conquered his people, claiming Mexico for Spain. The Spanish soon established factories in Spain to manufacture chocolate flavoured with vanilla.
Xocaotl became chocolate from the Aztec, while the secret flavouring, tlilxochitl, became vanilla from the Spanish “small pod” or “small scabbard”.
In 1602, High Morgan, the apothecary to Elizabeth I, suggested that vanilla could be used on its own as a flavour. The Virgin Queen was so enamoured of the flavour of vanilla that during her last years she would only eat foods prepared with vanilla.
The popularity of vanilla quickly spread through Europe, but nowhere so much as France. The French adored vanilla (and still do), so, in desperation for a more accessible source of vanilla, they smuggled out cuttings to their own colonies in 1793. The plants thrived in the tropics, but would not bear fruit.
The vanilla orchid is a small, trumpet-shaped light yellow flower. There is a thin membrane separating the male anther from the female stigma, so external help is needed to encourage pollination from the anther to the stigma.
The problem was a very small bee – the melipona bee. In 1836, Charles Morren, a Belgian botanist, discovered that the flowers were pollinated by the melipona bee, which is indigenous only to Mexico. Without this insect intervention, vanilla vines do not bear fruit and so vanilla was impossible.
However, the French on their Island of Réunion came up with a process called la marriage de vanilla – by piercing the membrane of the flower with a bamboo skewer you can collect the male pollen and transfer it to the sticky female stigma. This process was devised by a former slave, Edmond Albinous, in 1841. It was later discovered that the Totanacs had been doing this for hundreds of years in Mexico!
Vanilla plantations became established in the Bourbon Islands of Réunion, Madagascar, Mauritius and the Comoros, as well as other tropical regions, such as Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, Indonesia and parts of mainland Africa, such as the Uganda.
Sadly, however, the discovery of artificial vanilla from the waste sulphite liqueur of paper mills, coal tar extracts or eugenol (the oil from cloves) nearly ruined the natural vanilla industry. This imitation vanilla is a fraction of the price of natural vanilla and accounts for the bulk of vanilla flavouring used in the global market for ice-cream, confectionery and beverages – look for the word “vanillin” on the list of ingredients.
Growing, harvesting and curing
Growing vanilla
Vanilla is one of the most labour intensive crops in the world, ranking alongside saffron. There are 2 main species of vanilla orchid: Vanilla planifolia Andrews which is the classic Bourbon style vanilla and is grown in the Bourbon Islands (including Madagascar), India, Indonesia and Mexico; Vanilla tahitensis Moore is the species grown in Tahiti and Papua New Guinea.
Vanilla grows best in regions 10 – 20 degrees north or south of the equator. The climate must be warm, moist and tropical. Ideally, the humidity should be high and the wind light, however the Bourbon Islands do suffer from tropical storms which can decimate crops. The soil should be rich in organic matter ,and as it is usually grown on smallholdings of 1 – 1½ acres, vanilla growers tend to use natural fertilisers and mulches.
Vanilla vines are grown from cuttings planted alongside “tutor trees” on which to climb. The trees are pruned short to keep the plants within reach of the farmers and workers. The vines do not produce a worthwhile crop until their 3rd year, but they continue to bear a good crop for at least 7 years.
The plants flower for only part of 1 day and if not pollinated at that time no pods will develop and so they are tended daily and pollinated by hand using la marriage de vanilla. Shortly after pollination, the beans appear, reaching 10cm – 18cm in 6 weeks, then they need a further 8 – 9 months to reach full maturity.
Just as with the flowers, the beans do not all mature at once and so the beans require daily attention. In Madagascar, each grower will use a cork with a pin in a unique pattern to label their beans with a simple bar code; when you get your matured beans it may look like a series of dots/blotches of lighter brown on the bean.
Harvesting and curing vanilla
After about 7 – 8 months from initial pollination, the green vanilla pods begin to turn yellow at their tip. This means that they are ready for picking. Just as with the flowers, the green pods do not all become ready for picking at the same time, and so vanilla growers must check their vines on a daily basis.
In some vanilla-harvesting areas, the beans are harvested early to meet demand and reduce theft but this leads to an inferior bean. Conversely, if the bean is left on the vine too long, the pod may split and can no longer be sold whole, but can be used for extracts or the ice cream industry.
The first stage of the curing process differs slightly from region to region. It is this stage that starts the enzymatic process that causes the classic vanilla flavours and aromas to develop. Thereafter, the process is fairly similar from country-to-country similar.
In Madagascar and the rest of the Bourbon Islands, India, Tahiti and Tonga, the raw green beans are plunged into hot water to “kill” them. After this, the pods are laid out on mats in the sun to heat up for hours, where the workers handle the beans and turn them over. Late in the afternoon, the baking hot beans are collected and wrapped in blankets and straw mats, then placed into air-tight wooden containers to “sweat” overnight. This process is repeated for weeks until the head curer is happy that the beans have been properly cured. During this stage, the raw green beans turn a dark brown.
The beans are then held in a conditioning room for a further 3 – 6 months where the flavours develop further. During this conditioning stage, the beans are handled regularly, softening and shaping them – in the Madagascar they roll the beans between their fingers and so resulting in a rounded shape, while in India they tend to flatten them between their fingers giving a flatter, longer shape.
In Mexico, however, the process is begun in an oven. The green vanilla beans are wrapped in blankets, then straw mats and baked in ovens for 24 – 48 hours.
In Indonesia, Java and Uganda, the curing process is done more quickly with the beans being cured over a smoky wood fire or even a propane heater. The resultant bean is inferior and can only be used for extracts.
After the curing process is complete, the beans are sorted and graded according to quality, length and moisture content. Moisture content is quite important – if the beans are too dry, they lack flavour; if they are too moist, they also lack flavour. Good moisture levels are 18 – 25% – ours average around 20%. About 1kg of cured vanilla comes from about 5kg of green beans.
For export, the beans are sorted into bundles and tied together with raffia. These are then packed in wax paper lined square tin containers with loose fitting covers. Steenbergs Fairtrade vanilla beans come as bundles vacuum-packed in 5kg amounts to preserve the flavour.
The world’s best vanilla is called Madagascan Bourbon – named after L’Île de Bourbon, the former name for the Island of Réunion. This designation now applies to all vanilla beans from the islands of the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Réunion. Of these, the best comes from Madagascar where vanillin levels are 2.5%. The vanilla from India is almost of the same quality now as that from Madagascar – the climate is similar and the Bourbon process has been taught to the Indians by growers from Madagascar.
Tasting notes
Fresh vanilla pods have no flavour or taste. After fermentation, they develop a rich, mellow, intensely perfumed aroma with hints of liquorice or tobacco matched by a delicate, fruity or creamy flavour. They may also have hints of raisin or prune or smoky, spicy notes. Its flavours and aroma come from vanillin as the major flavour component as well as well over 250 additional trace flavour components. It is these subtle variations in relative amounts of aromatic aldehydes, esters, oils, organic acids and resins as well as the vanillin that creates the individuality of vanilla. No scientist can duplicate the individuality of vanilla.
Good vanilla pods are deep brown or black, long and narrow and somewhat wrinkled, moist, waxy, supple and immediately fragrant. The best pods have a light, white frosting, called givre, of vanillin crystals; so don’t worry about this on your pods, it’s a sign of quality and is not fungal growth.
The individual flavour profile of the beans is a result of the terroir and the curing process. Terroir consists of the soil, general climate and specific annual weather patterns.
Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar has a rich creamy flavour with sweet velvety notes (almost like chocolate); Bourbon vanilla from Réunion has a similar rich creamy flavour but with sweet spicy notes; Mexican vanilla is traditionally considered to be the most delicate and complex – it has the rich creamy flavour but with a hint of allspice; Indian and Ugandan vanilla are less full and creamy in flavour than the vanilla from the Bourbon Islands; Indonesian vanilla has a smoky, strong flavour.
Vanilla coming from Vanilla tahitensis Moore is different in flavour. Tahitian vanilla is heady, floral and fruit.
Vanilla extract
Vanilla extract is made by chopping the vanilla beans, then immersing them in a mixture of water and alcohol, which is continuously re-circulated through the beans until the essential flavour has been dissolved into the liquid. The details of the process vary from extractor to extractor. Some of the cheaper products – e.g. Supercook/ Dr Oetker in the UK – use propylene glycol as the solvent, which is an industrial solvent.
The simplest method is chops some vanilla beans up and immerse them into alcohol. This can be done quite easily at home – take a bottle of pure flavourless shop-bought alcohol, such as vodka, and chop some beans and put into the bottle. Shake it every few days and after 3 months, you will have your own vanilla extract.
A more controlled version of this is undertaken by extractors like Nielsen-Massey, who extract their vanilla at a warm temperature – maintained at 22oC, 365 days a year. They claim that this is cold-processed, but that’s warm for North Yorkshire. They then circulate different solutions of alcohol solvent over the beans fully to extract the flavours. This process takes about a month after which the finished extract is filtered and bottled.
Other producers carry out faster extraction by heating the solvent and using different levels of pressure. This can reduce the extraction time down to 48 hours.
The resultant “perk” is then filtered in a holding tank where it is aged like wine. Sugar or corn syrup is sometimes added to mellow the alcohol and to assist with aging. Once bottled, the aging process can continue for 2 to 3 years a bit like a good malt whisky from the Isle of Islay.
For the Steenbergs organic Fairtrade vanilla extract, we use the quicker extraction process. We don’t believe that the colder extraction process produces any better quality extraction, in spite of the views held by some other vanilla businesses. The key to the flavour is not the differential between the temperatures but rather the quality of the beans and the care taken in the extraction process.
Steenbergs organic Fairtrade vanilla extract is made as follows: whole organic Fairtrade vanilla beans are chopped and placed into a large processing vessel. A mix of water and organic ethanol (about 60:40) are added and the vanilla beans are steeped, gently heated to around 70oC and stirred for 24 hours prior to drawing off; this is done at atmospheric pressure. The same beans are re-extracted 2 further times and then all the batches are blended together to create the final end product.
Unlike some other vanilla products, we don’t add sugar or syrup as we believe that this obfuscates the delicate vanilla flavours and while it does dampen the alcohol aroma it’s tampering with a good product for the sake of giving a more consistent, more pleasing aroma while masking the vanilla notes with added sweetener. Going back to the whisky analogy, a good whisky is left to mature unadulterated whereas you can blend it with sugar to create a new product, a liqueur, such as Drambuie or Southern Comfort.
Pepper – black gold
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009Pepper is the king of spices – it has had far reaching effects on trade, voyages of discovery, cultures and cuisines over the centuries. To me, it embodies the wonder of spices – a distinctive, full-bodied flavour with an almost incredible influence on history.
Pepper and world history
Coming originally from the Wayanad plateau of Kerala in Southern India, pepper was probably the earliest spice known to man. It swiftly became an item of luxury and a store of enormous value that was often used in payment of taxes or as currency.
Pepper was the Roman spice of choice (they preferred long pepper rather than the black pepper we tend to use) and was even used in ransom demands for the City of Rome.During the Middle Ages, pepper was the most important commodity traded between India and Europe. Venice was founded off the pepper trade, dominating the overland spice routes to the Orient.
However, from about 1470 onwards, the Turks began to stop the overland trade routes east of the Mediterranean. So Portuguese, Italian and Spanish explorers sailed west or south to reach the Orient. As by-products, America was discovered, as was allspice (Jamaican pepper) and chilli pepper.
In Britain, peppercorns rents (literally rent payable in pepper) were introduced, becoming a real burden to many people.
When the wrecked Royal Navy ship, the Mary Rose, was raised from the sea bed in the early 1980s, nearly every sailor who went down with her in 1545 was found to have a little bag of peppercorns in his possession. In 1973, Prince Charles visited Launceston to receive his feudal dues as Duke of Cornwall. This included a pound of pepper as rent for the land on which Launceston Town and Guild Hall sits, and forms part of the tribute arising out of the grant of the town’s freedom by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, during the reign of King Henry III of England (1216 – 1272).When I worked as an accountant, I did some work for The York Waterworks and their head office was in an old building called Lendal Tower in York. The annual rental for Lendal Tower is 1 peppercorn payable to the City of York; this 500-year lease was taken out in 1677, so still has many years to run.
On behalf of Portugal, Vasco da Gama won the race to find the sea route to India and the Spice islands via the Cape of Good Hope. As a result, the Portuguese dominated the spice trade until the 18th century when Britain and the Netherlands took over, and then shared the trade in pepper and other spices, especially nutmeg and mace.
Pepper remains big business. 485,000 acres are given over to pepper growing, producing 325,000 tonnes of pepper every year. The global export market is worth US$345 million every year.
What exactly is pepper?
Pepper is the dried berry of the pepper vine, Piper nigrum. There are other peppers such as long pepper, cubeb pepper and pink pepper, but these come from different plants.
Vine pepper growing in Kerala, India
The pepper vine is a perennial climbing plant with smooth, woody stems and leathery leaves. It grows a little bit like ivy (without being parasitic) up a host tree or pole. The berries grow in long catkin-like clusters of bright green berries, ripening to yellow-orange and followed by bright red berries or fruits. There are over 100 different varieties of pepper vine – Steenbergs organic pepper mainly comes from Krimunda, Panniyoor and Tellicherry Special Bold vines.
Pepper grows only in rich soil in a moist tropical climate with a pH of 4.5 to 6.0 ideal. Propagation is normally by cuttings, although our organic pepper vines grow from wild-sown seeds.The vines do not produce a worthwhile crop until their 7th year, but they continue to bear a good crop for at least 15 years. Each spike produces 30 -70 pepper berries; one vine produces around 3kg of fresh berries every year, yielding around 1kg of black pepper. Every pepper spike is hand-picked by skilled pickers using tripod-like ladders.
What are the different types of pepper?
Green pepper is the youngest pepper berry. Whole berries are picked by hand during September/October in India (2 – 3 months before picking berries for black pepper). These immature berries are soaked in brine to preserve their green colour then air-dried. They are hot and fiery, retaining many of the characteristics of fresh unripe berries picked straight from the vine; green pepper is the Beaujolais Nouveau of the spice industry – bright, simple and lacking some depth.
For black pepper, the berries are picked whilst still green but almost ripe during December through to February in India; the farmers are looking to pick when 1 or 2 berries in the pepper spikes are turning from green to orange. After harvesting, the immature green berries are stripped from the stems mechanically and then lightly fermented by drying in the sun, spread out on large concrete yards. During drying which takes about 7 days, the berry shrivels, taking on the classic wrinkled look and turns a black or dark brown colour; it takes 1 – 2 days to turn from green to brown and the remainder to dry out.
Pepper pickers with pepper drying on concrete drying yard
White peppercorns are allowed to ripen more fully on the vine, being picked around March in Southern India when the spikes are fully ripened and a colourful orange-red. After drying, the outer shell is removed in a constantly flowing stream of cool water until the black outer shell loosens (this process is called “retting”), yielding a clean, white corn through rubbing or trampling the dampened peppercorns. White pepper has a more intense heat than black pepper with a deeper richer flavour.
Red peppercorns are fully mature pepper berries and are rare, as you need to keep the berries on the vine longer and they reduce the yield from pepper vine in the following year. They are picked in April/May. The flavour is quite fruity and less intensely peppery than green, black or white pepper; I actually don’t really like the flavour as it seems too sweet and fruity for me, but that is probably just a case of being used to black peppercorns and being conditioned to expect a particular aroma and flavour.
Ungraded pepper is the lowest quality, coming from more than one estate and a mix of pepper species and berry qualities. Using the Indian system of classification, the basic graded pepper is Malabar Garbled 1 (MG1; size less than 4mm), with the higher grades Tellicherry Garbled Extra Bold (TGEB; size 4.25mm) and Tellicherry Garbled Special Extra Bold (TGSEB; size 4.75mm).
Is organic really any different?
When quality brings no extra money and margins are preciously thin, pepper growers cannot take any chances – the longer the berries stay on the vine, the greater the risk that they will be eaten by birds or the crop will be lost in a storm. So pepper berries are treated to grow faster, yield more and are picked as early as possible – just like intensively farmed tomatoes.
We sell a relatively large quantity (by volume) of our pepper into the food manufacturing industry and I have never once in the last 4 years (we started in 2003 and only really began selling bulk in 2004) been queried about the organoleptic qualities of the pepper (i.e. aroma, flavour, colour) by a single buyer. Quality to the food industry means price and low microbial levels on the peppercorns rather than aroma or flavour, i.e. quality actually equates to money and risk aversion and not flavour.
However, at Steenbergs, we do care about the type and flavour of Steenbergs organic pepper, so we carefully select and grade the pepper that we purchase.MG1 is already a step up from other peppers, with peppercorns that are larger and more consistent in flavour that you will typically find in supermarkets. The Tellicherry grades are even better than the small ones for the same reason that vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh from the garden in August taste better than shelf-ripened tomatoes from the supermarket in January.
Going back to the tomato analogy, a tomato vine produces something that looks like a tomato fairly quickly, but it is only in the final weeks of ripening that the true deep-red tomato colour and its rich, sweet flavour fully develops. Peppercorns are the same – immature fast-growing pepper is still nice, but it is the slower-growing specialist varieties of pepper that have then been given that extra ripening time on the vine that makes the trip from India to Britain really worthwhile.
We think that the best black pepper comes from Kerala in Southern India, where the best Tellicherry grades are grown. Indian pepper has a fruity aroma and a clean bite.
Indonesian lampong pepper (from Southern Sumatra) is highly favoured in America where they like its higher level of piperine and lower level of essential oil – I think this harks back to the history of the spice trade where American pepper originally came from Sumatra and was imported into Salem, Massachusetts. Lampong pepper is more pungent than aromatic, with smaller berries that are grey-black in colour.
Sarawak pepper from Malaysia has a milder aroma than Indonesian berries, but is hot and biting. Brazilian pepper has a low piperine content and is rather bland. Vietnamese pepper is light in colour, mild and uninteresting in flavour – but it is very cheap!
Isn’t pepper organic anyway?
Like all agricultural crops, pepper vines are susceptible to pest and diseases, ranging from the destructive fungal disease – quick wilt disease – through to nematode infestations that attack the root systems or pollu beetle attack, to name just a few. Chemical treatments for these include Bordeaux mixture, carbofuran and methyl bromide.
Post-harvest treatment is, also, common to provide broad spectrum control of disease and insects and target possible fungal growth and aflatoxins. Treatment is typically fumigation and ethylene oxide prior to shipment and then heat treatment on arrival. Irradiation (if ever) is rarely used from British spices.
The use of synthetic fertilisers is common, especially among the intensive, high-yield pepper growers in Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam.
I have calculated that 17% of the farmgate cost of farming normal pepper relates to chemical inputs – this excludes any post-harvest treatments.
Steenbergs newsletter
Friday, April 24th, 2009
Spring offers from Steenbergs – the organic and Fairtrade specialists
May brings special offers on post and packaging, barbeque seasonings and ideas for credit crunch cooking.
Steenbergs online shop is no longer only organic spices and seasonings – we’ve a whole range of organic bakery ingredients, bath products including shampoo and soap, and vitamins and supplements, as well as organic chutneys, sauces, jams and marmalade - you can even buy your own instant organic herb garden – just buy the voucher and send it off and a whole herb garden will appear!
Free post and packing on all UK orders over £10.00
From now until mid-May Steenbergs is offering free post and packing on all UK orders over £10.00. So if you haven’t looked at all the other things we now offer – now’s the time – from the delicious organic chutneys, mustards, jams and sauces to organic baking ingredients to organic bakery accessories to vitamins and supplements.
There’s lots on offer at Steenbergs as well as our core range of organic, some Fairtrade, spices, herbs, seasonings, chais and blended teas.
This offer will last until Friday 15th May – 7am.
Steenbergs English breakfast loose leaf tea – organic and fairtrade – is back
For the many converts we have for this tea – we apologise for the delay – which was caused due to a sudden upsurge in demand between harvests- we’ve been awaiting one last vital ingredient of our delicious blend – it’s now in stock and blended. So for those of you who need a cup of Steenbergs English breakfast tea to start the day – you no longer need worry and we’ve managed to secure sufficient supplies for forward sales.
Two other favourites return
Za’atar and organic dukkah - both middle-eastern spice blends have also made a reappearance due to popular demand. Za’atar is a delicious blend of thyme, sumach and toasted sesame seeds and works well on bread, chicken or in a whole variety of dishes, very moreish flavour. Dukkah is a mixture of toasted seeds and spices and also works well on bread with oil but is also good in a whole variety of Middle Eastern dishes including salads and as a crust.
Summer is around the corner – barbecues are back on the menuOn the grounds that we, as in the Brits, are never sure how long our summer is going to last, the first sign of sun quite rightly brings out the bbqs. Steenbergs has a whole range of organic BBQ rubs to help you create delicious BBQ flavours. The rubs also work on grilled or roasting meat – including kebabs cooked in the oven.
Steenbergs also stock a whole range of sauces to inspire any BBQ from Glenroyd’s organic sweet chilli jam to a whole host of organic mustards, chutneys, even organic tomato ketchup and organic mayonnaise.
We’ve even got the recycled aluminium foil to create parcels of steamed vegetables or steamed fish. Add Steenbergs organic Mediterranean rub for a delicious herby flavour or Steenbergs all purpose organic one-derful rub for a more spicy flavour.
Credit crunch cooking and recipes
With the current credit crunch about more people are cooking at home and looking for interesting ways with left overs. There’s always something to do to jazz up a meal – whether it’s stir frying with Steenbergs organic chinese 5 spice or for a spicier version try our organic nasi goreng, with its heat of hot chillies? Noodle soup is always a winner at home and can be a way of using up a left overs as well as cost effective way – Steenbergs organic Chinese 5 spice is frequently used in ours.
Alternatively curries have long been a traditional way of using up left overs. For mild tastes try our organic korma blend of spices and add organic ground almonds and coconut milk. A very traditional curry, and our most popular, is the Steenbergs organic Madras curry works very well. One of our favourite curries at the moment is organic chana masala – a chickpea curry (don’t forget to soak them overnight before cooking!). Sophie is currently a particular fan of Steenbergs organic Sri Lankan masala which works well with some fried onion, coconut milk and fish or vegetables - it’s very easy and quick to create a tasty curry.
Alternatively we have lots of different sauces from organic soy sauce and organic Worcestershire sauce to organic chutneys.
Steenbergs offers a whole range of recipes to help inspire you – if you would like to add your favourite recipe just email sophie@steenbergs.co.uk with the recipe and we’ll publish it with acknowledgement to you.
Focus – Axel and Sophie Steenberg
Steenbergs was founded in late 2003 to offer quality organic spices, packed with flavour, aroma and provenance. It was founded by Sophie and Axel Steenberg, husband and wife who met each other at Edinburgh University where Axel studied microbiology – very useful with all the microanalysis we undertake with the spices – and Sophie studied environmental and African politics. They moved to Yorkshire 13 years ago. Axel comes originally from Northumberland and Sophie was born in London, brought up in Gloucestershire. They have two small children (well 6 and 7) – both of whom have found themselves tasting all sorts of blends over the years – the flavoured sugars have been most popular, but they have also enjoyed helping make sausages to test out the blends. Axel is chief creater of blends – which is no mean feat as we now offer over 200 of them, Axel also does the majority of imports and liaising with our partners around the world.
Sophie tends to concentrate more on the human resources and public relations side of the business. The biggest challenge now is to not look at the computer and website every 5 minutes at home! Biggest challenge in 2003 was to get started – there was just so much to do and think of including getting organic certification in our then unit, all with a 1 and 2 year old at home, I think we took the key to our first unit on our daughter’s first birthday. Biggest success – becoming the UK’s first Fairtrade spice company.
Since we began we now employ 7 members of staff (many of whom are part-time) and most of whom have been with us for several years now – with their roles developing along with the growth of the business.
Functions and feedback
We’ve been working with our web designers to improve the look and ease of use for the website in recent months. These range from interlinking the recipes and products more to helping you move around the site. Watch out for our new blog which will be up and running shortly.
We would love to hear from you about a) what you would like us to improve on the website b) what products or product area you would like us to add to the web shop c) what you would like us to include in future newsletters/ blogs.
We will try and incorporate as many of the ideas as practically possible.
Stockist news
Don’t forget that we keep a list of your local stockist on the web – just tap in your postcode and your nearest stockist should come up. Booths supermarkets also stock us and we have a number of distributors particularly for our popular organic Fairtrade vanilla extract, organic rose water and organic peppermint extract – as well as several stockists in Scotland, Ireland and Finland. Oxfam also continue to stock our organic Fairtrade bagged teas – peace tea (our blended black tea) and green tea.
