Pepper Paste

Sun-dried and cooked slowly near Antakya

Sweet peppers from growers near Antakya are picked at full ripeness and deseeded by hand — the slow part, and the reason the finished paste is smooth rather than gritty. The peppers are salted, laid out to air-dry until the flavor concentrates, then cooked down until the color deepens to crimson and the paste holds a spoon upright. Peppers and salt, jarred hot. This is a preserve made the way a household would make it, at a scale that fills more than one household’s shelf.

How to use

• Build the base of a stew or braise with it — a spoonful fried in oil at the start does more than an hour of simmering later.
• Spread it on warm bread with olive oil and a pinch of salt, which is how most of a jar disappears.
• Work it into kısır along with tomato paste, lemon, and herbs.
• Whisk it with yogurt, garlic, and lemon for a dip, or with oil and lemon for a marinade.

What’s inside

From the Journal: how to use Turkish pepper paste · substitutes, compared.