Green peppercorns with steak and other things too

"I use green peppercorns, as I love the grassy punch they give: seek them out fresh if you can; if not, the brined ones in jars will do just fine."

Anna Jones - The Guardian

Don't they look gorgeous? Almost jewel like - and I did see a set of gold earrings made from a cast of dried green peppercorns, which were, of course, knobblier than these.

I don't think I have ever seen any fresh green peppercorns, but I see that Australia does grow a few peppercorns. I guess it might be possible to buy them in an Asian style market - I must have a look next time I'm at Box Hill - which is not that often these days. Don't think I have seen them at the Queen Victoria Market but it is possible. But you can of course buy them in cans in brine in your local supermarket in those small tins with the iconic label. There doesn't seem to be another brand available, although I have occasionally seen dried green peppercorns. All the websites seem to say that these go off quicker though, so are not as good a buy. Anyway, for me it's the ones in brine. I always try to have a tin somewhere in my store cupboard.

I've done pepper before so I will try not to repeat myself. We all know that it's the same as black peppercorns but unripe don't we? Softer and fresher, but still quite spicy.

It's David's special meal day and he wants green peppercorn steak. I know I'm supposed to use an actual recipe and I have scoured the net, but they almost all insist on brandy and I know I haven't got any at the moment, and it's not worth going out to just get that. So red wine will have to do.

There seem to be two, or sort of three basic approaches to green peppercorn steak. In the first you crush the peppercorns, cook your steak and deglaze the pan with something - brandy, wine, cream, crème fraïche ... for a sauce. Or you just cook the steaks as normal and then make a sauce with the green peppercorns and one or two of the above liquids. Sometimes people add things like mustard or chives or thyme as well. Then there's the simplest - cook your steak and put a dob of green peppercorn butter on top - or just melt butter and add the peppercorns. Here's a selection of pictures:

So I'm afraid I'm going to duck out of the actual recipe dictum and just do my usual compromise kind of thing. Press some peppercorns into the steak before cooking (maybe with a little flour even), fry the steak and deglaze with wine, cream and the rest of the peppercorns. Pepper steak with green peppercorns - done. At least it's easy. Although I'm not that great at steak.

But what else can you do with green peppercorns? Well quite a bit of course.

I had the impression that green peppercorns were terribly trendy back in the 70s and 80s and so I went to Beverley Sutherland Smith for inspiration and I'm sure she has lots of recipes here and there, but I couldn't find them. But then she has not very good indexes in her books. I googled trends and fashions but still couldn't find any commentary on when and how it has come and gone in restaurant menus and cookbooks. Type 'green peppercorns' into Jamie Oliver's site, for instance and you will get nothing. Delia and Donna Hay too. I do get the vague impression that they have gone out of fashion somewhat, but nevertheless I did find a few things here and there.

Nigel Slater seems to be the biggest fan and he has a few suggestions.

The first is a pork braise or stew:

"An ice-white sky, an old blackened casserole with a sweet braise of pork shoulder and winter leeks finished with briny green peppercorns and, for once, a little cream; a thin French loaf with which to clean our plates" Nigel Slater

Then there is a raclette tart and some spicy lamb patties. And finally he offers a smoked salmon and green peppercorn butter pasta.

His Guardian fellow columnist, Yotam Ottolenghi didn't have all that much of interest to me I have to say and Jamie Oliver, as I said, seemed to have nothing.

However, another Guardian columnist Anna Jones had a perfectly delicious looking Green Peppercorn and Coconut Broth, which is a soup in Asian mode, with spinach and squash as well. I actually found quite a few recipes her and there that combined pumpkin and green peppercorns, so it must be a good match.

And last of all I did find one Donna Hay recipe in my cookbooks, although I feel sure she must have others tucked away somewhere. It must be indexing again. The recipe I found was for tuna - a bit like a pepper steak really, because you just pressed the peppercorns into the tuna and then cooked it, serving it with the salad. Very simple. And then in a last bit of googling, I also found a beautiful looking Green Peppercorn and Apple Summer Slaw.

Here and there on the net were recipes for chicken and other fish and other pork recipes too, so I guess that in general cooks seem to use it in milder tasting food - but we are having it with hearty beef. With a jacket potato and maybe some peas.

Sorry - more or less just a list of recipes I suppose. I really wanted to find out who had brought them into fashion and what happened, but I failed rather miserably at that.