Paprika

Sweat the onion first, kill the heat, then stir in paprika or it burns.

The carotenoids are fat-soluble; without pig fat the colour stays in the spoon.

Long braise: the pepper sugars thicken the sauce as the collagen goes.

Lactic acid cuts the dusty sweetness and turns the sauce pink.

Sweet pepper dust and bitter anise seed. Most gulyás recipes use both.

Starch holds colour and nothing else; the paprika supplies all the flavour.

Sweet capsicum dust colours the fat and gives mild meat an accent.

Same fruit family, one fresh and one dried. Depth without more acid.

Yolk fat carries the pigment; the whole thing turns orange and richer.

Paprika is most of what chorizo tastes of. The pork is a delivery system.

Smoked pepper doubles the char the grill already put there.

Pimentón in the oil turns the shells orange and the fat sweet.

Sweet pimentón in the butter makes the shell flavour visible.

Same fruit family, different concentration. Both need fat to bloom in.

Capsanthin is fat-soluble. Bloom it off the heat or it turns bitter fast.

Oak-dried peppers. The smoke arrives already ground and in a tin.

Roasted brassica sulfur takes sweet pepper dust better than it should.

Floury beans absorb the bloomed fat and go red the whole way through.

Boiled, sliced, dusted. The spice is the entire seasoning and it holds.

Pepper dust plus soft curd makes a spread instead of a salad.

Shared carotenoid sweetness; the peel oil lifts the dust off the palate.

Roast bitterness under dried-pepper sugar, the mole idea moved to Europe.

Both hold fruity red-pepper esters. Dust it on and the berry tastes cooked.