Padron peppers

Pimientos de padron, unos pican y otros no
“Padron peppers, some are spicy, some are not!”

This week we warmly welcome a new crop into the box, the Padron pepper. Peppers are one of the oldest domesticated crops in the world, first domesticated by different peoples throughout South America sometime around 7000BC.

We’ve been wanting to grow these beautiful small Spanish peppers for some years now, and as we’ve become better growers we’ve slowly found the space in the 1/4 acre for them. Famously 9 out of every 10 Padrons are mild, the 10th can be spicy. The spanish saying goes “padron peppers, some are spicy, some are not!”

So far it is believed that they made their way to Spain from South America via Spanish Monks who began to cultivate them inside their monastery’s walls in the town of Herbon. Which is they other common name, Herbon peppers. They have cultivated in Herbon for over 300 years.

Padron peppers are a landrace variety which are small, green and possess a sweet piquant flavour that makes it hard to stop eating them!

Enjoy them fried in a hot pan whole, with EVOO and salt. Once cooked squeeze a bit of lemon on them and wow, they are such a tasty snack.

Dylan and I have eaten them twice now and have found them to be mild and smokey, with amazing flavour. So I don’t think you need to worry too much about the heat, I was excited for more because I love spicy food. A few days ago we had a really interesting conversation with some growers in Naarm Melbourne who are growing the exact same Padrons from the same seed producer Transition Farm. They said their Padrons are pretty spicy, especially as they get any bigger than 5cm long. We havn’t found this to be the case at all, and they were speculating that maybe its our milder climate or different sun latitude that might be a factor, we don’t know. But they are delicious!