Piment d’Alep

Oil pools red on white; the dairy acid meets the dried-fruit sweetness.

Sweet mild heat rather than fire, so the fat still tastes of lamb.

Bloomed in butter over poached eggs; the flakes bleed red into the yoghurt.

Same fruit sugars, same faint acidity. It reads as more tomato.

Half-salted and half-oiled already; the fat pulls the colour straight out.

Fruity chilli heat with no smoke. Warms the berry rather than burning it.

Fruity mild heat with enough salt to season the skin.

Sour and mild-hot, both red, both scattered last. The Levantine finish.

Sweet-sour syrup gives the raisin note somewhere to go.

Fruity slow heat, oil-bloomed, folded through while the grain is warm.

Both dried stone-fruit sugars; the heat stops it collapsing into jam.

Raisin and tobacco notes in both; the heat is too low to interrupt.