Pimientos de Padrón

Pimientos de Padrón are small green peppers from Galicia, fried whole in olive oil and served hot with salt. They are a common tapa in Spain.

What it really is

The dish is built on small green Padrón peppers (a Capsicum annuum variety grown around the town of Padrón in Galicia) cooked whole in olive oil until the skins blister and soften, then salted, usually with coarse sea salt. The peppers are fried briefly over moderate to high heat so the flesh turns tender while the skin chars in spots.

The defining feature is the variation in heat: most peppers are sweet and mild, but a small proportion are noticeably hot, and there is no way to tell them apart before eating. The dish is often served as a shared plate, with the phrase "some are hot, some are not" widely used in Spain. It differs from shishito peppers, which are a similar looking Japanese variety often grilled or blistered in a pan with soy sauce; the classic Galician preparation uses only oil and salt.

How it's served

• Served hot as a tapa or starter, straight from the pan, on a shared plate.
• Eaten whole by holding the stalk, with the stalk discarded after eating the pepper.
• Often accompanied by bread and a glass of Galician white wine or beer.
• Diners should expect that roughly one in ten peppers may be hot.

How to write it on the menu

• Name the peppers as Pimientos de Padrón, fried in olive oil and sea salt, to set the expectation of a shared dish.
• State that a small number of peppers are hot, as guests may not expect heat in a mild-looking vegetable.
• Note that the dish is vegan, with no animal ingredients.
• If served with a dip, list the dip and its allergens separately, such as aioli containing EGGS.