Peperone crusco di Senise ✦

Peperone crusco de Senise

What it is

The Senise pepper is bred for drying rather than for the table: thin flesh, little water, and a stalk that holds fast enough for the fruit to be needled onto two-metre strings, the serte, hung outdoors through the summer. Crusco is dialect for crisp, and it describes what happens in the pan, not on the plant.

In the kitchen

Fry them whole at about 160 °C for three or four seconds — any longer and they blacken and turn bitter, which is the failure everyone meets first. Lift them onto paper; the shatter only arrives as they cool.

Goes with

Olive oil Cod Potato Garlic Egg Anchovy Pork Pecorino Romano

Same species

Ají amarillo Ají panca Ajvar Aleppo pepper Ancho chilli Bell pepper

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