Golden Chicken Thighs with Malaysian Long Pepper
Turmeric, lemons and spicy long peppers make beautiful companions in this easy oven roasted sheet pan meal. On this evening, I also baked a second sheet pan of roasted potatoes, parsnips and onions, adding more of the same spices I use in this chicken recipe.
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Roasting the lemons alongside the chicken brings out the sugar in the lemons and they are absolutely yummy squeezed over anything you like.
Long Peppers are truly a pepper and closely related to the traditional black pepper we all know and love but long pepper has a much more complex flavor. A little bit musty but with the sweet scents of clove, nutmeg and even vanilla, it also carries the heat expected from black pepper.
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Try using this pepper with fresh fruit or to spice up your tea.
Long peppers get their name from their appearance. They are very long pine cone shaped packets of tiny peppercorns that are easily grated with a microplane much like what you would do with a whole nutmeg. I love to use this as a finishing spice but this pepper also plays very well in spice blends over long cook times. It's a commonly used pepper in many stews and curries in Ethiopia, Northern Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia.
