Steenbergs Cubeb Pepper Standard Jar 45g

• Steenbergs Cubeb Pepper Standard Jar - 45g.
• spet pepper for Indonesian and African cooking in particular.
• glass jar with lid, easily reusable or recyclable.
• from UK family run run spice company, Steenbergs, based in North Yorkshire.

Steenbergs Cubeb Pepper, Piper cubeba, is a great and difficult to find spet pepper. Cubeb pepper, or tailed pepper (or even older Java pepper), comes from a vine native to Java and other Indonesian islands. The cubeb pepper berries look like cartoon bombs that you might see in Tintin books; cubeb pepper berries are black and of a similar size to black peppercorns but with a 3 - 6mm long stalk sticking out of one end. The aroma of cubeb pepper is fresh and peppery, while the flavour is hot, pungent and pine-like. Although popular for many years as a substitute for true pepper, it is seldom seen in cuisine nowadays save for being a key component of Steenbergs ras al-hanut spice blend - a throwback to the times that spice trading was dominated by Arab merchants. Steenbergs tailed pepper comes from Indonesia, but there are similar peppers from Africa, including Ashanti pepper or false pepper (Piper guineense), Benin pepper (Piper clusii) and tsiperifery, a rare wild pepper from Madacar, which Steenbergs also supplies - see Voatsiperifery. Cubeb pepper fruit is furrowed and d with its distinctive tail; they have a small seed suspended inside them and do not contain a white core like in normal vine peppercorns. In Indonesian cuisine you might find it called tabe djawa. Cubeb pepper has a distinctly peppery taste, but cubebs are more piney in flavour and extra bitterness than classic vine pepper, with extra heat and pungency. Cubeb's flavour mellows on cooking, and combines well with other spice flavours such as grains of paradise. While cubebs were popular in times of yore, they remain popular in African and Indonesian cooking. Cubebs have a warm, pleasing aroma and an aromatic camphorous note, with a flavour that is peppery, piney and pungent with hints of allspice or nutmeg. Sourced and packed by Steenbergs, the artisan family run spice merchants from rural North Yorkshire.