Smoked Sweet Paprika

Description

Paprika, Capsicum annuum, is from the Solanaceae family (also known as the night shade family). You’ll find paprika used in Hungarian, South American and Spanish cuisine dishes and in the U.S. it has become more popular with food adventure seekers in the last 10 years.

Paprika is considered a very mild chile (100-250 SHU) and it will never provide the same level of heat as a smoked chipotle chile (5,000-10,000 SHU) or cayenne pepper (30,000-40,000 SHU). Instead what you’ll get is a complex flavor profile with undertones of fire roasting without overwhelming your dish with unwanted heat. Smoked Paprika is also a fairly forgiving spice and you’ll often find recipes calling for a bit more than you might think is needed in order to provide superior flavor depth.

History of Smoked Sweet Paprika

In most European languages, the name Paprika is derived from the name of pepper, owing to the many confusions of pepper with other spices (see Allspice. To add even more chaos to the naming convention, contemporary Spanish uses the masculine form, pimiento, for paprika and the feminine form, pimienta, for pepper.

Paprika is commonly referred to as "sweet pepper" in many languages. In most of these languages, the word for "pepper" is used interchangeably with the word "chile", so it is within reason this can also mean "sweet chile" or "sweet chile pepper". It is called Pimiento dulce (Spanish), Piment Doux (French), Fulful Halu (Arabic).

Since chile peppers had been cultivated in the Americas long before the Europeans made their first voyage to the New World, their exact point of origin is a bit difficult to pin down. Chile historians are of the opinion that the genus of chiles, Capsicum, originated in South America, most likely in the region of what is today Southwestern Brazil and Northeastern Bolivia. It's believed Chiles were first cultivated by the people of Central and South America in around 7000 BC.

In 1494 when Christopher Columbus returned from his second voyage to the New World, he presented paprika to the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella who had sanctioned his voyages. The King and Queen found these chiles a bit too spicy for their tastes and they passed them on to the monks at the Guadalupe monastery, who in turn shared them with other monasteries throughout Spain and Portugal. It wasn’t until the 17th century that pimentón, the milled powder from these chile peppers, became more common in Spanish cuisine.

While paprika is probably most popular in Hungry, Spain is generally considered paprika’s second heartland. Paprika grown in Hungary is usually sun dried while chiles prepared in the traditionally Spanish way are smoke dried carefully over the course of a few weeks. 

Smoked Paprika Cultivation

The pepper seeds are usually planted in March and harvested in late summer and early fall. Paprika chiles thrive in mild climates where the rain is plentiful. The flavor and heat levels can vary a bit (even from the same farm) from year to year depending on the average temperature and the amount of rainfall during that particular growing season. Pimenton is harvested between mid September and early November (depending on that year’s growing season).

Our Paprika comes from either China or Peru, depending on the time of the year, though it is smoked and processed in Spain in the Spanish tradition of making paprika. 

What Makes Smoked Paprika Unique

Next to the growing fields most farmers have constructed small smokehouses with concrete floors and wooden grids several feet above the floor. Once the paprika chiles are harvested a fire from slow-burning oak planks is lit on the concrete floor and the peppers are laid out on the grid above the fire. The fire never flames only smolders and the chiles are smoked for 10 - 15 days. The smoked dried peppers are removed from the smokehouse, stemmed and seeded and then milled by electrically powered stone wheels which must turn very slowly as heat from friction adversely affects the signature color and flavor. The end result is a silky smooth texture.

Cooking with Smoked Sweet Paprika

The smoky quality of this ground chile will seductively pull you in and even just a pinch or two adds a captivating smoky aroma and flavor to just about any dish. Smoked Paprika is customarily used in making Spanish sausage such as chorizo and lomo pork loin.

Smoked Spanish Paprika is a key spice in Andalusian (located on Spain’s southern coast across from Morocco) cooking. With its deep, rich and smoky flavor it is added to berza (a thick black bean soup), chorizos, fish dishes, ham hocks, morcilla (black sausage), paellas, romesco (red pepper almond sauce) and sofritos.

In this country many competition Barbequers use Smoked Sweet Paprika as a secret ingredient in their pork rubs. Smoked Sweet Paprika is especially good with beans, rich beef and lamb stews, pork and veal casseroles, chicken kabobs, legumes, meat loaf, vegetables, rice, in homemade barbecue sauces, soups, salad dressings and egg dishes (when used as a garnish - especially with deviled eggs).

It can also be added to honey to create a spectacular barbecue glaze to accentuates paprika’s natural sweetness. Because paprika is from the nightshade family it tends to pair very well with other nightshade family members, especially potatoes and tomatoes.

Smoked Sweet Paprika works well in combination with allspice, caraway, cardamom, garlic, ginger, oregano, parsley, pepper, rosemary, saffron, thyme and turmeric.

Some of our favorite recipes using Smoked Sweet Paprika are Smoked Paprika Chicken with Quinoa, Vegetable Jalfrezi, Vegetarian Roasted Spanish Potatoes, Spiced Almonds, Patatas Bravas,Spanish Garlic Mushrooms, Tortilla Espanola, Artichokes al Ajillo and Lean Ground Beef Chili.

What Does Smoked Sweet Paprika Taste Like

Smoked Sweet Paprika is rich in flavor, complexity and depth with smoky undertones.

What’s the Difference Between Hot and Sweet Paprika

This is one of the most frequently asked questions we get about our smoked parikas. The difference between Smoked Paprika Hot (500 -1,000 SHU) and Smoked Paprika Sweet (100 - 250 SHU) is that the hot version is ground with the seeds of the chile pepper left in and the sweet version has the seeds removed prior to grinding.

Helpful Hints

We carry several other paprikas including - Smoked Paprika (Hot), Hungarian Paprika and a Domestic Paprika from California.

** This product is certified kosher.

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