A heated affair with Padron, shishito peppers
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Shishito pepper dish by Chef Sonja Finn at Dinette restaurant. -
Padron peppers. -
Shishito pepper from the garden of Sonja Finn. -
Sonja Finn, owner-chef of Dinette in East Liberty.
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Place: The Basque Country in the north of Spain. Time: Couple of years ago. Business: Two Yankees walk into a bar. The length of the bar is lined with platters of pinchos, the local term for tapas. Taking a cue from the locals, the Yankees bypass the calamares a la plancha, croquettas de jamon, jamon serrano and manchego cheese. The jump here is on plates of Padrons, finger-length, blistered and scorched local green peppers. Action: They eat. OMG!
Padron peppers, pimientos de Padron, are small, thin-skinned peppers traditional to the Galicia area of Spain. Usually they are served slightly pan-charred in a little olive oil, sprinkled with coarse salt and served warm. Padrons are mildly flavored, but definitely not bland, though the occasional incendiary one will pop up because the level of heat varies according to the capsaicin of each pepper. There's a saying, "Os pementos de Padron, uns pican e outros non," which is Galician for "Padron peppers, some are hot and some are not." The little guys have so much spice and chile flavor, you'd think MSG is part of their DNA.
I've searched for the Padrons, my lost love, my one-night stand. Then I met tempura-fried shishito peppers across the globe in an izakaya-sushi bar in Japan, sort of an Asian tapas bar.
Holy kimomos, are these peppers cousins? Seems so.
Back home, I spied grilled shishito peppers on the appetizer menu at Dinette, a restaurant and wine bar in East Liberty. There, chef-owner Sonja Finn tosses the peppers with olive oil, turns them on the grill until blistered and soft and almost collapsed, then plates them in a pool of Sicilian olive oil with dollops of goat cheese and a sprinkling of fried almonds and fleur de sel.
First Published August 25, 2011 12:00 am
