Let there be Padrone!

Finally got around to finding Padrone peppers online. Well the seeds anyway. So now I’m off to learn how to grow these FINE peppers. I found the seeds at: growitalian.com and I even spoke with the owner, Bill, since the instructions were all in Italian.

Padrones are an awesome little pepper. Picked them when they’re the size of your thumb and you have a great sweet/medium pepper. Pick them when they’re bigger than that their heat is more likely to come through. Unfortunately they’re native and do well in a Mediterranean climate – so we’ll see how they fare in Oakland. Around here there’s only 2 options for getting Padrones. At the Embarcadero Farmer’s Market in SF ($20/lbs!) or at Cesar‘s (Berkeley & Oakland) where I first discovered them last year.

They’re most commonly flash fried in olive oil – just enough for their skins to blister a bit – and then throw some rock salt their way… They’re the pepper version of crack!

Here’s the progress on my first batch.