Paprika

• paprika

  Hungarian

  In Hungarian paprika means the pepper itself as well as the ground spice, and the grades run from sweet to distinctly hot.

• pimentón

  Spanish

  Spanish pimentón is the ground spice; pimienta is pepper. Pimentón de la Vera is the smoked kind.

• toz biber

  Turkish

Sweet and gently fruity with a mild bitterness, and a body that gives dishes depth without heat. The smoked grades are assertively smoky and reduce everything else on the plate to a supporting role if used heavily.

Sweet, fruity and faintly tomato-like in the unsmoked grades; oak-smoked pimentón adds a pronounced, persistent smokiness that dominates the aroma.

Deep red to red-orange, and the primary reason paprika is used. Measured commercially in ASTA colour units.

A fine, slightly oily powder that clumps a little and stains readily.

• Capsanthin and capsorubin — The red carotenoids responsible for the colour; fat-soluble, so paprika colours oil far better than water.
• Capsaicinoids — Pungency, in small and processing-dependent amounts.
• Guaiacol and syringol (smoked grades) — Phenolic smoke compounds deposited during oak drying, giving smoked pimentón its character.

Take the pan off the heat, stir the paprika into the warm fat, then add the liquid. Paprika scorches in a hot dry pan almost instantly and turns bitter. Add smoked paprika earlier rather than later in long cooking, since its phenolic smoke compounds hold up well.

Central to Hungarian cooking, to Spanish cooking through pimentón, and widely used across central Europe, the Balkans and North Africa. It supplies colour and sweet depth to stews, sausages, rubs and sauces, and smoked pimentón in particular can add a convincing barbecue character to vegetarian dishes without any meat or smoke.

• blooming — The colour carotenoids are fat-soluble, so stirring paprika into warm fat off the heat releases the colour into the dish. This is the standard first move in Hungarian cooking and it transforms the result.
• frying — Paprika burns very readily and becomes acrid and bitter. It should meet fat that has been taken off direct heat, not a hot dry pan — this is the most common paprika mistake.
• boiling — Holds colour reasonably well in a wet braise; the smoky notes of pimentón persist strongly through long cooking.

Compare it against a fresh tin if you can, or simply look: fresh paprika is vivid red, old paprika is brown-red and smells dusty rather than fruity.

• A browned rather than red colour
• Dusty, flat aroma
• Caking or a slightly rancid smell

• Photodegradation of capsanthin and capsorubin, dulling the colour to brown
• Oxidation of the fatty fraction, producing a stale, slightly rancid note
• Moisture uptake and caking

Ground is the only form, so the decision that matters is which paprika. Treat sweet, hot and smoked paprika as three separate ingredients in the cupboard rather than variants of one, because substituting between them changes a dish more than most cooks expect.

• A vivid, deep red rather than a brown-red.
• A stated grade — Hungarian különleges or édesnemes, Spanish dulce, agridulce or picante — rather than the bare word "paprika".
• For smoked paprika, a stated origin; pimentón de la Vera is a protected designation and means something specific.
• A tin rather than a clear jar.

Hungarian grades run from különleges (finest, mildest, brightest) through édesnemes, the standard sweet grade, to csípős and erős, which are pungent. Spanish pimentón is dulce, agridulce or picante, and separately either smoked (de la Vera) or unsmoked (Murcia). Bulk trade additionally uses ASTA colour units as a measured colour specification. Buying paprika without reading the grade is the main reason people find it disappointing.

Solanaceae

An annual or short-lived perennial of the nightshade family, native to the Americas, grown in a very wide range of cultivars.

The Americas; Capsicum was domesticated in Mesoamerica and South America and carried to Europe after 1492.

• Hungary (Szeged and Kalocsa) — major producer. The centre of the Hungarian paprika tradition and its grading vocabulary.
• Spain (La Vera, Extremadura) — major producer. The home of oak-smoked pimentón, which carries a protected designation of origin.
• Peru — major producer. A large producer for the international colour-extract and bulk trade.
• China — major producer

Fruit is picked fully ripe and deep red, since colour develops with maturity and unripe fruit produces dull paprika.

1. Ripening and picking — Fruit is left to colour fully on the plant before picking.Why: Carotenoid content, and therefore colour, rises with maturity.
2. Deseeding and destemming — Stems, seeds and placental tissue are removed to varying degrees.Why: The placenta carries most of the capsaicin, so how thoroughly it is removed largely determines whether the finished paprika is sweet or hot.
3. Drying — Air-dried, sun-dried, or — in La Vera — slowly smoke-dried over oak for a period of days or weeks.Why: Smoke drying is not a flavouring shortcut but the traditional drying method of the region, and it defines the product.
4. Milling — Dried pods are stone- or roller-milled to a fine powder.

Hungarian paprika uses a named grade scale running from különleges (the finest and mildest) through édesnemes — the common sweet grade — to csípős and erős at the pungent end. Spanish pimentón is classified as dulce (sweet), agridulce (bittersweet) and picante (hot). International trade also grades on measured colour value using ASTA colour units. These vocabularies are genuinely informative and are printed on the tin, which makes paprika one of the easier spices to buy deliberately.

Paprika and chilli powder were at the centre of a major European adulteration incident in the mid-2000s, when the industrial azo dye Sudan I — a genotoxic carcinogen not permitted in food — was found to have been added to chilli products to intensify colour, prompting extensive recalls. Bulking with tomato skin, other ground plant material, and the addition of permitted or non-permitted colourants remain the recognised integrity risks.

Grown as an annual field crop from transplants, with cultivars selected for colour intensity, flesh thickness and low pungency.

Warm temperate to subtropical, with a long dry ripening period.

Capsicum peppers reached Europe after 1492 and were adopted first in the Iberian peninsula and the Ottoman-influenced parts of central Europe. Paprika became central to Hungarian cooking comparatively late — it is a nineteenth-century development in its familiar form — which makes it a useful corrective to the assumption that national spice traditions are ancient.

1. Post-1492 · Europe

   Capsicum is carried from the Americas to Europe and spreads rapidly through Iberian and Ottoman trade networks.

2. 19th century · Hungary

   Paprika becomes central to Hungarian cooking, and cultivar selection and milling techniques develop into the modern grade system.

   The dishes now regarded as classically Hungarian are considerably more recent than their reputation suggests.

Paprika is traded both as a culinary spice and, in large volume, as a natural colourant for the food industry, where measured ASTA colour value matters more than flavour.