Ashanti pepper ✦

Poivre des Ashantis

What it is

The vine gives two crops: the berry, and the leaf — uziza — which West African kitchens treat as a green vegetable dropped into soups at the last moment. Tell it from cubeb by the tail: on Ashanti pepper the little stalk curves, on cubeb it is dead straight, which is how false cubeb came by its other name.

In the kitchen

Crush it coarsely in a mortar and put it in at the start of a braise rather than at the table — twenty minutes of moist heat is what draws the green, resinous note out. Ground fine and sprinkled cold it reads only as a thin, slightly bitter black pepper.

Goes with

Chili pepper Onion Ginger Garlic Red palm oil (dendê) Egusi Beef Dried shrimp

Same species

Black pepper Cubeb pepper Green peppercorn Hoja santa Lolot leaf Long pepper

Something wrong here, or missing? Tell us