Raised in an Armenian household in Santa Clara, California, Levon Minassian recalls trips to the Middle Eastern spice shop where his parents bought Aleppo pepper, the mild, fruity red-chile flakes named after the Syrian city, to use in all manner of dishes at home. Culled from big bins and decanted into bags dragged home, the crimson powder was sprinkled over labneh, baba ghanoush and soups, each pinch a burst of sunlight.
Now, as a founder of Fire Tongue Farms, about 30 miles south in Santa Cruz, Minassian, 34, grows fresh Aleppo peppers and many other chile varieties, dries them and processes them into flakes. At the moment, his Aleppos are green, but soon they will be red, sun-dried and milled, fragrant with the sweetness of time.
Like Aleppos (also known as Halaby peppers), many of the world’s most delicious dried red-chile powders and flakes belong to the Capsicum annuum species, a plant with many varietals and what the chef and food historian Maricel Presilla calls, in her book “Peppers of the Americas,” “both the greatest world traveler of all peppers and the one found in the most incredibly diverse forms.” These include jalapeños, cayenne and bell peppers.
You know what else is part of this pepper group? Gochugaru, the sweet, fragrant Korean chile flakes that dye kimchi red; togarashi, a bright-orange powdered chile from Japan; fruity, moderately spiced Espelette pepper, named for a French commune and prevalent in Basque cooking; ground chipotle, jalapeños that have been dried and smoked; paprika, which comes in many styles but especially sweet, hot and smoked; and more.
By viewing chiles not just by heat level but by flavor, we the curious — home cooks who like to linger in the kitchen — can wander a world of culinary possibilities. So my question to you is: What’s in your pepper pantry?
There’s nothing wrong with the shaker of pizza shop red-pepper flakes — the one next to the oregano and Parmesan — but it’s just one color in a spectrum of chile possibilities. The joy of cooking with dried chiles is mixing and matching. Why paint in gray when you can access a full palette of brilliant colors?
It all comes down to preference, in the end. “Do you want it sweet or do you want it hot or do you want it red or do you want it yellow?” said Ethan Frisch, a founder and CEO of Burlap & Barrel, a company that sells single-origin spices.
For Frisch, 37, who has bought various red peppers from Minassian’s farm for Burlap & Barrel, each dried chile flake has a story: As with coffee and wine, terroir is a key determinant in the ultimate flavor of a chile. “It doesn’t take long for the chile to start evolving, to meet the demands of its local climate,” he said. “And that, of course, changes the flavor and also is, of course, shaped by human interest.”
As an example: An old friend from high school, James Dong, recently gave me a plastic resealable sandwich bag of Korean red chiles he had grown in Georgia (from seeds he bought on Etsy), smoked and crushed himself to make gochugaru. His chile flakes had the same red glint and jammy savoriness of those grown in Asia, but through the smoking process, they had taken on the fragrance of Mexican chipotles. The blazing perfume was so strong, it felt like I was carrying around a flame. I reached into that bag to sprinkle over all kinds of meals throughout the month, but the most delicious use of it was in this tomato sauce.
Whichever pepper you choose to stock, this recipe takes full advantage of Capsicum annuum’s flavor and heat, and celebrates its journey. Using a mix of dried chile flakes, and accepting that it’s all right to have more than one in your pantry (they all taste so different!), leads to exciting results.
A homage to Marcella Hazan’s famous tomato sauce, this recipe has you switch the order: First, the butter is melted, so it can bloom a heaping tablespoon or two of your favorite mix of chile powders and flakes to bring out their fruity heat. In lieu of red-pepper flakes made by a childhood friend, you can use regular gochugaru, Aleppo pepper or even togarashi, among others, along with a little smoked paprika to replicate the explosive flavor that smoking gives beautiful red chiles.
At the end of the day, dried chiles have so much to offer, beyond just their spiciness. All it takes is a little playful tinkering in the kitchen to bring out those coveted qualities.
Spicy Pizza Sauce
By Eric Kim
An homage to the famous Marcella Hazan tomato sauce, this iteration has you switch the order: First, the butter is melted, so it can then bloom a heaping tablespoon or two of chile flakes to bring out their fruity heat. Any kind works, but what this recipe can teach you is how to mix and match between different chile powders to find exactly the flavor you’re craving in any given moment. Because at the end of the day, chiles have so much flavor, so much nuance, beyond just their spiciness. Use this all-purpose red sauce for pizza, pasta, sandwiches and everything in between.
Yield: About 1 quart
Total time: 1 hour, largely unattended
INGREDIENTS
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 to 2 tablespoons red chile powder or flakes (any mix of gochugaru, togarashi, Aleppo pepper, Espelette pepper and red-pepper flakes, plus 1 teaspoon smoked paprika)
1 (28-ounce) can whole plum tomatoes, crushed with your hands
1 large red or yellow onion, quartered lengthwise and peeled
1 (2-inch square) Parmesan rind
Salt
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
DIRECTIONS
In a large saucepan over medium, melt the butter, then add the chile powder and stir until fragrant, just a few seconds (be careful not to burn the chiles). Add the tomatoes, along with 1/2 cup water swished around the can to catch any clinging sauce. Stir in the onion, Parmesan rind, 1 teaspoon salt and the sugar, if using.
Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer. Partially cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick and jammy, about 45 minutes. Discard or eat the onion. Discard the rind. Taste and add more salt or sugar as needed.
Use right away or store in a tightly sealed container. The sauce should keep for up to 5 days in the refrigerator (and is even easier to cook with when cold).
— This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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