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Black peppercorns

Whole spices

Black peppercorns

Piper nigrum

Whole dried black pepper berries, ground fresh or used whole in stocks, pickles and tempering.

Also called: whole black pepper, peppercorns

  • Hot & numbing
  • Warm & sweet
  • Resinous & piney
  • Mild
Buying & storing35 recipes

Photo: Misterneedlemouse, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0-1.0)

Flavour and aroma

sharp, woody, piney, citrusy when fresh. Hot, woody, citrusy.

Heat
Mild
Forms
whole, ground

How to use it

  • bloom in fat · Tadka (tempering) technique

    Add whole to hot ghee for pulao and biryani with the other whole spices, 20–30 seconds until they swell slightly.

  • dry roast · Spice roasting (dry-roasting) technique

    For rasam powder, Chettinad masala and pepper fry, roast over medium-low heat for 1–2 minutes until fragrant and starting to crackle.

  • crush · Dry grinding technique

    Crack coarsely in a mortar for pepper chicken and pepper fry; grind fine for rasam.

  • Filling a pepper mill
  • Whole spices fried in ghee for pulao and biryani
  • Stocks, brines and pickles
  • Crushed coarsely for steak and pepper chicken
  • Dry-roasted and ground into masalas

Identifying good quality

Wrinkled, black to dark brown berries 3–6 mm across. Good pepper is heavy, uniform and strongly aromatic when cracked. Tellicherry is a grade of larger Malabar berries. Light, hollow berries and lots of dust mean poor quality.

  • Not to be confused with Cubeb (kebab chini): Cubeb looks the same but has a short stalk attached.
  • Not to be confused with Allspice: Allspice berries are larger, smoother and reddish-brown.

Origin and history

Origin: The Western Ghats of south-west India (the Malabar Coast).. Grown and used: Grown today mainly in Vietnam, Brazil, Indonesia, India (Kerala, Karnataka) and Sri Lanka..

Pepper from the Malabar Coast was shipped to the Roman Empire through ports such as Muziris, and the search for it helped drive the Portuguese voyage that reached Calicut in 1498. Before chillies arrived from the Americas in the 16th century, pepper was the main source of heat in Indian cooking.

Well documented

In masalas, pastes and sauces

Recipes with black peppercorns