{"id":59935,"date":"2017-10-06T05:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T09:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.com\/?p=59935"},"modified":"2018-05-09T10:50:42","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T14:50:42","slug":"gift-lab-gourmet-pepper-mill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/2017\/gift-lab-gourmet-pepper-mill\/","title":{"rendered":"Gift Lab: Gourmet Pepper Mill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Marisa, UncommonGoods Copywriter<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

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Product<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gourmet Pepper Mill<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Research<\/strong><\/p>\n

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My faithful but limited old pepper mill (L), with the new model waiting in the wings (R).<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve been using the same pepper mill since forever. Made of cast aluminum, in a classic retro style, it’s solid, chic, and will last a lifetime–everything I wanted in a mate<\/del> pepper grinder. It was a knock-off of the expensive brand, but I didn’t feel like I was settling. It has provided me with fresh-ground pepper for decades. I never thought I would stray.<\/p>\n

Then a new pepper mill came into my life. I hadn’t gone looking for a replacement. It found me, here at work. I write item copy, and was assigned our Gourmet Pepper Mill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(OK, I’m lying. I chose it myself.)<\/p>\n

While reading about it, I became…intrigued. \u00a0It wasn’t its fancy French pedigree, although that didn’t hurt. It was the performance it promised. Perfectly even grinds, in my choice of fineness or coarseness. And I could choose a different peppercorn type on a whim. Variety is the spice of life, and pepper is a spice, amirite?<\/p>\n

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1876 Dutch illustration of pepper (piper nigrum) vine. (Public domain)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

I read about pepper (piper nigrum<\/em>, not chili peppers, an entirely different plant) and how it sparked the spice trade, with its history of international intrigue, daring exploration, lust for power, and fierce greed. I researched the types of pepper that come with the fancy mill, and dreamed of the exotic, heady aromas and tastes that could be mine with a simple twist of the wrist.<\/p>\n

If thoughts are deeds, I was already cheating on my old mill.<\/p>\n

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L to R: Interchangeable canisters of Indonesian Muntok, Vietnamese Dong Nai, and Madagascar Voatisperifery peppercorns.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Experiment<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mill comes with three different types of high-class peppercorns. Each is in a plastic canister that you can snap on and off the mill in seconds. I was into this, bigtime. I love experimenting with new ingredients. I’d never heard of Voatsiperifery, a wild peppercorn from Madagascar, and read that it was good on desserts. I hadn’t tried pepper (other than chili peppers) on anything sweet, but I was game. I’d been wanting for a while to try making panna cotta, and it’s white, so the ground pepper on it would be easy to see. Perfect.<\/p>\n

Panna cotta is so easy and fast to make! I had no idea. I turned to one of my favorite, trusted cooking blogs for a basic vanilla panna cotta\u00a0recipe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Clockwise from top L: Half-and-half heating on the burner; vanilla essence and unflavored gelatine powder; sugar; heated half and half with the ingredients added<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

All you do is sprinkle some unflavored gelatine powder on a mixture of milk and cream (half-and-half is a shortcut). (For an animal-friendly alternative to gelatine, use agar agar<\/a>.) Heat, but not to boiling, which nullifies gelatine’s gelling properties. Makes sure gelatine is dissolved. Add sugar and let it dissolve, too. This all just takes a few minutes. Add vanilla and a pinch of salt, and pour into molds (coffee cups will do just fine).<\/p>\n

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Clockwise from top L: Motley bowls filled with liquid panna cotta mixture – some peppered, some not; closeup of a peppered bowl; closeup of a peppered bowl after solidifying in the fridge; liquid becoming pudding-y in the fridge.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

If you want to try pepper, sprinkle it on now. Put the molds in the fridge for a couple of hours. Boom, you’re done. Your silky, creamy, jiggly panna cotta is ready to eat.<\/p>\n

While I loved the panna cotta, the pepper-on-dessert thing turned out not to really be my thing. So I decided to try my new pepper mill on some savory items. Only one rule: they had to be white, or off-white, for contrast.<\/p>\n

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I changed canisters and tried the Vietnamese Dong Nai pepper on a beefsteak tomato sandwich. Bliss.<\/p>\n

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I don’t need to tell you which is which, do I? Nope.<\/p><\/div>\n

I tested the two mills on some spaghetti. Look at the contrast between pepper ground by my old mill and the new one. \u00a0The old one doesnt grind evenly, not even a little bit. On some foods, like salads, I like being surprised by a bigger chunk of pepper. But on most dishes, I want both more subtlety, and more control over how much pepper my tongue touches at once.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

I feel a little guilty about abandoning my old, trusty pepper grinder. But it turned out that it wasn’t really all that trusty: it did the job, but not very well.\u00a0I love my new mill. I want to give it to everyone I know. And I’m looking forward to trying all sorts of different peppercorns.<\/p>\n

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Save<\/span>Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Product Gourmet Pepper Mill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":61588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[741],"tags":[148,3,66,1579],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59935"}],"version-history":[{"count":59,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68761,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59935\/revisions\/68761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}