Thursday, July 30, 2009

Pimientas de Padrón or Padron Peppers

These wonderful little green peppers are now planted every year in my garden. I still can't figure out why I only plant 2 plants instead of a whole field of the things. They are not exactly sweet, and they are not spicy (though occasionally you'll get one with more of a bite to it.) but they have the most incredible flavor.

I usually cut off the stem, slice them fairly thin lengthwise and then sauté them in olive oil with a little bit of salt. Sometimes to stretch out the flavor I sauté several with a bell pepper. I then spoon this mixture over slices of fresh bread and add some feta cheese on top. It is incredible.

These peppers originally come from Spain and on my trip to Spain last month I learned that they are specifically from Galicia. And it looks like Galicia has fairly cool summers, so maybe that's why they grow well here. In Spain they serve padron peppers as tapas. They fry them up whole in olive oil and you pop them in your mouth. They also served them much bigger than I had been harvesting. The first year I bought them from the nursery, the tag said harvest at olive size. Though they are ready to eat then, in Spain, they harvest them at a much larger size. Maybe 2 inches long. So this year that's what I'm doing.

5 comments:

  1. It is too cold here to grow peppers, but these would be the ones I would try. I can't stomach the spicy ones!
    Thanks for stopping by my blog. I am trying to find out from my Dad about the Aprium/ pluot issue. :)
    Rosey

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  2. Sounds delicious. I appreciate the spicier end of the charts, but this year I have more sweet peppers in the yard than spicy ones. One year I grew similar peppers that had the occasional spicy one and a family member will never forgive me for assuring her that they were all mild, right before she bit into one of the more incendiary ones.

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  3. Great blog- I'm curious as to whether the padron plants are easy to find in nurseries in the Bay Area, and also whether Spring is the only time to plant?

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  4. Hi R3N33. I get my padrons usually at Berkeley Horticulture. Though I also think they are available at East Bay nursery. From what I know they are popular here, so should be easy to find in other parts of the Bay. I've planted mine as late as June, but no later. They seem to get bigger and produce more if I plant them earlier. And last year I tried to overwinter them, but they died.

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  5. Any idea about growing Padrons in San Diego-coastal. And where they can be bought or if they need to start from seeds.

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