Cubeb Pepper

Originally from Indonesia, Cubeb pepper is slightly spicy, with subtle yet bitter aromatic notes of clove. Alone or mixed with other peppers, use Cubeb pepper to enhance both your sweet and savoury dishes, as well as your chutneys or fruit compotes.

Explore Honeyed and Herbal Flavors

Both mild and spicy, this pepper can be enjoyed with savory as well as sweet dishes. Locals sometimes infuse it to combat fever, aid digestion, or chew it like candy.

How to Use Cubeb Pepper?

Here are some recipe ideas to use cubeb pepper in your cooking:

• strawberry cubeb smoothie: add half a teaspoon of cubeb pepper before blending everything;
• chocolate fondant with cubeb pepper: add 4 ground cubeb pepper grains into the melted chocolate and butter;
• wok-fried vegetable medley: add a teaspoon of ground cubeb pepper to the wok with the vegetables before stir-frying them;
• chocolate mousse: add half a teaspoon of ground cubeb pepper to the melted chocolate;
• cubeb pepper apple compote: add a teaspoon of ground cubeb pepper to the apples before cooking them;
• cubeb pepper sea bass fillet: crush 3g of cubeb pepper and add it to a saucepan with shallots, white wine, white vinegar, salt, and herbs, then let it reduce;
• roasted melon with port and cubeb pepper: caramelize honey in a pan, add a teaspoon of crushed cubeb pepper, then color the melon quarters. Flambe with port and let it reduce while basting the melon quarters.

Smoky and Fruity Notes

The aroma of cubeb pepper expresses smoky and fruity scents on a honeyed and fruity background, with hints of smoked tea and herbal infusion. Wrapped in delicate flavors of sweet spices and resin, it pairs perfectly with lobsters, Asian dishes, exotic fruit compote, or a chocolate/mint dessert.

The aromatic imprints of this cubeb pepper are minty and slightly spicy. It pairs perfectly with chocolate mousse, exotic fruit compote, or a vegetable stir-fry.

Cubeb Pepper or Indonesian Pepper

Cubeb pepper is obtained from berries, harvested before maturity, dried, and ground. You can consume it directly by chewing the berry. This small pepper grain grows mainly in Southwest India, between Sumatra, Java, or Borneo.

Cubeb pepper, whose botanical name is Piper cubeba L., grows wild in the middle of the tropical forest. Cubeb pepper harvesting requires a lot of meticulousness and lasts about 1 month. It develops by winding around trees that can grow up to more than 10 meters high.

Cubeb pepper clusters are harvested at optimal maturity, once they turn red, around June only.

An average tree yields 50 kg of fresh pepper. To obtain 1 kg of dried pepper, 4 kg of fresh pepper is required. To dry the pepper grains, they are exposed to the sun for 3 to 4 days to evaporate the water.

Where Does Cubeb Pepper Come From?

The Story of an Amazing Pepper

Faux pepper, this is also how cubeb pepper is designated. Indeed, it does not belong to the Piper nigrum family!

Imported into Europe by the Arabs in the Middle Ages, the use of this pepper was purely medical for respiratory problems or even sorcery; indeed, it was one of the ingredients in love potions, for example. In the 17th century, cubeb pepper became rare because the king of Portugal banned it to promote black pepper, which he commercialized. Cubeb pepper is now widely used in Maghrebian cuisine; it can be found in ras el hanout, for example.

Cubeb pepper is the fruit of a climbing plant, native to the Indonesian islands. The fruits are harvested green before maturity and then dried in the sun, which gives them their dark color.