I ordered two ounces of Sichuan Peppercorns and was quite surprised when a one pound bag showed up at my doorstep. Must have been some kind of distribution error as my account just shows the two ounce purchase. No return emails from the company yet.
My main use for these is a “secret” ingredient in my beef jerky but I use small amounts in cooking as well. Two ounces last me a good year.
I’m a relatively competent cook so and ideas would be appreciated! The brand is Frontier if that makes a difference.
Put some in a bottle with vinegar and let it sit, making a pepper vinegar hot sauce of sorts. I am experimenting that way with some more run of the mill pepper. Has an interesting flavor.
Oh, don’t fill the bottle totally with the peppercorns. Those things swell up a fair bit, might even break a bottle if they are really packed in there. Mine are jammed in there pretty tight now that they have expanded. Maybe about 2/3rds full or so?
I do have vacuum sealer, so I could theoretically seal and freeze the extra. I was hoping someone had a recipe that uses lots of them at once. They aren’t hot, kind of flowery tasting and numbing. They’re usually used as a numbing device to counter an abundance of hot peppers.
Get a bottle of vodka and put some whole and cracked corns in. Put in the pantry for a couple weeks, shaking to mix every other day or so.
Strain out the corns, then keep vodka in the freezer.
The alcohol will release the volatile flavors and oils that water cannot, and you can use in most any dish you make.
That might work. But a few years ago I had the same idea when we grew all kinds of different herbs. Whatever gives herbs their flavor did not diffuse into the oil worth a damn. Which kind of confused me because I thought the flavors were basically oils of sorts. Yet vinegar did work, which seemed odd to me because shouldn’t an oil diffuse into an oil better than water? So much for my simple theories on such things…
Oh, do you mean when you use the oil the peppercorns come out too?
flush down the toilet? do keep in mind that some people, like myself, think that sichuan peppercorns are Satan’s dingleberries. Dang, I think those things are just nasty. I love spicy food but the numbness and salivation the real stuff causes is just abominable. I lost soooooo much weight when I was in Sichuan.
Put some in a jar of pickles. I have a pickle recipe that uses Szechuan peppercorns, and it’s really good. You could make your own pickles from scratch, but it’s easier just to add some flavor to commercial pickles.
Just want to warn you, that raises my botulism alarm. Storing herbs, peppers, garlic, or anything in oil is usually a bad idea. They are anaerobic environments suitable for bacteria growth.