Sansho pepper ✦

Poivre sansho

What it is

Sanshō belongs to the citrus family, not the pepper family, and its tingle comes from hydroxy-alpha-sanshool rather than from capsaicin or piperine. The same shrub gives kinome, the young leaf clapped between the palms to wake it before it goes on a spring dish.

In the kitchen

Buy it in small tins and finish it within a few months: ground sansho loses its lift faster than almost any spice, and a jar over a year old is just mild numbness. Dust it on after cooking, never into the sauce.

Goes with

Eel Chicken Miso Soy sauce Silken tofu (kinugoshi) Button mushroom

Same species

Andaliman Green Sichuan pepper Hana-sanshō (sanshō flower buds) Kinome (sanshō leaf) Sichuan pepper Green Sichuan pepper oil

Also used with

Chicken tail (bonjiri) Kinkan (unlaid egg yolks) Japanese Spanish mackerel (sawara) Saltwater conger (anago)

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