The grind of a pepper mill. It's music to the ears. If your taste in music leans to the sounds of cogs cranking, that is.
But why should the music end with pepper? Like, I know it’s in the name, but, like pepper, these 9 ingredients also taste better when ground fresh, and a pepper mill (also known as a pepper grinder) saves you the trouble of yanking out the mortar and pestle.
Yes, it’s still pepper in a pepper mill, but freshly grinding these addictive peppercorns makes their mouth-numbing potency even more potent. Try grinding some into a burger, on top of popcorn, or on a chocolate mousse.
Yes, like the kind you eat with salsa. Ground-up tortilla chips are a great crunchy addition to black bean soups and chili—just sprinkle the bowls with tortilla dust right before serving.
Want to get a grind fit for a French press? Grab a pepper mill, load it up with whole coffee beans, and crank out a coarse grind.
Pack your pepper mill with a mix of red pepper, dehydrated onion, and garlic flakes. Grind some of that blend on barbecue ribs. Or pizza. Particularly this pizza.
Slip some dried shiitake in your pepper mill and grind them into a soup base or over a turkey meatloaf.
Say hello to the greatest ice cream topping ever. Break the berries into smaller pieces before putting in your pepper mill, then grind them into a delicious, red dust. But make sure you’ve cleaned out the mill—black pepper desserts are great, but not always the effect you’re after.
What, you thought that only gin could have fun with juniper berries? Grind a little juniper dust over duck for extra earthy pine flavor or use it to reduce some of the gaminess in venison.
Every time you grind a spice you coax a bigger, more intense flavor from that spice. Allspice is already a very intense flavor, so you need to be judicious. That said, a grind or two in autumnal desserts is always welcome. And it even works well in savory applications, such as in this marinade for leg of lamb.
Use cracked coriander to complement and even temper some of the anise notes in fennel dishes, to bump up the toastiness of rice dishes, and to give salad dressings more intensity.
Back away from the salt! There’s a reason why salt mills and pepper grinders are sold separately: Salt mills use ceramics in the grinding mechanism, whereas pepper mills use carbon steel, which salt corrodes.
