I don’t know if they are popular outside of Spain, however padron peppers are a mainstay of Spanish cuisine and are very common as tapas. They are typically served either fried or grilled and sprinkled with salt.
I’d never really thought about where they originated, but I did notice that there seemed to be a bigger selection here and bigger bags of them in the supermarkets. I also noticed when we’ve bought plants that there was a remarkable selection of different types of padron peppers as I had assumed there was just the one – green.
Well, it turns out that padron peppers are from padron in Galicia – just the other side of Santiago.
Well well!
We’ve grown padron peppers but have left them to go red. I’ve only ever seen them as green in the shops, but they are nice when red.
We decided to dry what we’re not using and as always it’s a suprise that we start off with trays of veg and end up with just a small jar full when they are dry!
I’m quite a fan of dried food – I’m surprised really that it’s not embraced more – particularly when there are concerns over increasing food waste & the transport costs. I realized after seeing mountains of veg or fruit fit into little jars after dehydrating how much money is spent on transporting and storing water! Dried food takes less space, lasts longer and I think tastes better. Perhaps if we had a big freezer it might be different, but as we are at the moment, it certainly works for us 🙂