Padrón Peppers

Many, many years ago, I remember being excited by mentions in high-end food blogs about a pepper that was extremely rare, the padrón, which was just being planted by a handful of small growers in the US. Padrón peppers come from the town of the same name in Galicia, in the far northwest of Spain where they are often seared in a pan, sprinkled with salt, and served as a tapa. Galicia, home to both padrones and world-class Albariño wine, must be a very special place.

Padrón peppers' reputation is that fruits on the same plant have random levels of spiciness. The vast majority are mild, but every now and again, a small fraction of the peppers will be really spicy. I love really spicy food, so I was attracted quite naturally to padrón peppers. I used to put them on the menu at the restaurant as an appetizer, but they never gained any traction with guests. That was a real shame, but my restaurant was probably a couple of decades ahead of the curve.

Padrón Peppers

Flash forward to 2020 and it's hard to go to a farmers market and not find padrón peppers or shishitos, their mild Asian cousins. They are just coming into season now and I have been buying them for a couple of weeks at our local farmers market, where several vendors offer them for sale. Before COVID, we could find plates of them at local restaurants. Sadly, one of our favorites which featured them has closed permanently thanks to this epidemic.

Of the many hundreds of padrón peppers or so-called padrón peppers that I have dined on, I have never encountered a spicy one. There, I've said it. Not quite true: just this week, I had two that could be called spicy, but they were far less spicy than a decent jalapeño. But it is overwhelmingly true to say that I have never had a padrón that lived up to its Russian roulette reputation.

Some that I have eaten, sad to say, were mild shishitos that restaurants were selling as padrón peppers. I like to think that this was because of confusion in the produce trade about the two very similar (and yet distinct) looking peppers. Unfortunately, I am afraid that because certain restaurants had padrón peppers on their fixed menus, they substituted shishitos when padrón peppers were not available. Misleading and too common, I am afraid. It is so disappointing to order one thing and be served another, best or worst of intentions aside.

But all the rest of the real padrón peppers that I have eaten were mild, a function of climate, I am convinced. After decades of growing and eating peppers of all sorts, I believe in my heart that like wine grapes, peppers which are coddled yield fruit that is nothing special. My experience is that the hotter and more arid the climate, the spicier and tastier the peppers. No wonder then that all the locally grown (in Virginia and now Oregon) padrón peppers have been mild. We don't the climate that best suits them.

That said, even without the spice, they are delicious and blistered padrón peppers or shishitos are one of my favorite tapas. I like to use them to garnish other dishes as well.

Blistering Padrón Peppers

Blistering peppers is trivial. Heat a pan over a medium high flame, add a bit of olive oil, then add the peppers in a single layer. As the peppers blister on each side, turn them to another side. When each pepper is blistered around, remove it to a plate. Sprinkle with really good coarse salt.

A Tapa of Blistered Padrón Peppers

You can see above a tapa-sized portion of peppers. While they are wonderful to eat just like this, I think they make great garnishes for other dishes, especially egg dishes. Below, I used them to garnish a plate of sliced tomatoes topped with bacon scrambled eggs. This dish screams summer at me. What a fine brunch dish that was!

Tomatoes, Bacon Scrambled Eggs, and Padrón Peppers