Paprika

In the modern kitchen we are givin more spice options to add flavor to our food then ever before, unless of course you're from India, where they have been making the rest of us envious of their spice mastery for centuries now. However it seems like as more and more spices collect on our shelves, the less and less we know about them. Because of this I think we are a little scared of this wonderful orchestra of flavor, terrified that if we add to much, or not enough, the dish will be completely ruined. And forget about ever trying to add these mystery spices to one of your own dishes.

These fears are well founded (you can easily runin a perfectly good dish with the wrong spices) they are unnecessary. Maybe if we understood what some of these spices are, we would be more confident in their uses, thus opening a door to a wonderful world of flavor all our own.

With this post I want to focus on Paprika, while integral to cusines throughout the middle east and southeast asia, as well as spain, south Africa and Mexico; few cooks seem to know exactly what it is and where it comes from.

Paprika is simply chili peppers air dried and crushed to form a fine powder. This makes Paprika technically from the new world, as the Americas are the only continents where peppers evolved naturally. Let that sink in right?

Paprika was introduced to the old world through Spain, where the peppers are first smoked befor grinding. If you haven't tried smoked hot paprika you should , I use it almost exclusively in my kitchen. Where most paprikas are nearly flavorless, and are used mostly for color, smoked paprikas have pronounced earthy flavors that can really elivate a dish.

From Spain paprika was brought to central Europe by the Ottoman empire, where it remained spicy until the mid 20th century when a suitable sweet pepper was discovered for use, this new paprika then found its way back to America where its journey began.

The secret to cooking with paprika is finding one you like, there is a wide rang of paprikas out there, none of which is really suited for everything, but there are some that come pretty close. As I said before I prefer a smoked hot paprika because of the rich deep complexity in flavor. When working with one of these variations, you dont need as much as with milder version.

If you are using a mild paprika remember, mostly all you are getting is color, use what you need to get the color you want, and if you want a lot of color don't be afraid if you use a little too much, it likely wont have an adverse effect. I would cation you to make sure you are using good paprika, as I said, before not all paprikas are equal so experiment a little. If it is old it tends to get papery in flavor and the colors dull eventually becoming brown. Even a mild paprika, if it get too stail can ruin a dish.

Good luck guys, I hope you enjoyed reading this, as much as I did writing it. Now go make something delicious.