08 July 2010

Recipe For Pomegranate Barbecue Sauce

We have been asked for some time whether we could source a pomegranate molasses and I am nearly there on that.  One of our current suppliers, who is based in Beirut in the Lebanon, sent us a sample of Concentrated Pomegranate Juice which is the same...

05 July 2010

June 2010 Food Blog Round Up

At Chocolate & Zucchini, there is a delicious sounding recipe for sablés from Yves Camdeborde's book Dimanche et Famille.  Clotilde Dusolier's blog then sent me around various links on her site to several other biscuit recipes that sound fantasti...

28 June 2010

Simple Burger Recipe - Part 1

Saturday, a cold Saturday a few weekends ago that felt like winter but was meant to be almost midsummer.  It felt like a good day to start trying to find the Steenberg family's favourite burger recipe.  We tried three recipes which we taste tested si...

15 June 2010

Pepper Harvest

I have just been cleaning out one of the drawers in my desk and found this old CD of photos from Kerala.  I thought it would interesting to put up a couple of photos of farmers harvesting the pepper from the vines.

09 June 2010

Recipe - French Tomato Tart

The other day my parents visited from Northumberland, and as it was a gorgeous sunny Thursday, I plucked up the courage to try one of David Lebovitz's recipes.  It's always a matter of bravery as I am in awe at other people's ability to make seemingl...

20 May 2010

New Indonesian Pepper Just Arrived at Steenbergs

I read a book last year called “The Scents of Eden” by Charles Corn – it’s a history of the spice trade.  It was great as the perspective was different from the histories that I had read in the past which always wrote them from the angle of European...

31 March 2010

New Penja Pepper from the Cameroon in Western Africa

I’ve got some new peppers and as usual I am bit over-giddy about it.  These ones are classic Piper nigrum – the traditional pepper plant for normal black, white and green pepper.   Usually, we get our black pepper from India and Sri Lanka, but these...

05 February 2010

Steenbergs Launches New Design For Spice Tins

At Steenbergs, we have been doing a lot of work trying to refresh parts of our organic spices and seasonings range.  Now we have relaunched our spice tins into a bright new label and an elegant rolled tin.

24 October 2009

Exotic Pepper From Around The World

I’ve been hunting for some specialist peppers in recent months.  That’s what some of the thrill of being a spice merchant is all about – hunting for the exotic, tracking it down and then getting it in.

23 October 2009

River Cottage everyday - a recommendation

Whilst shopping at Booths in Ripon today, I was waiting in the "10 items and under queue" and found this recommendation, and I was so pleased that I bought the book (£8 off cover price to boot):

15 September 2009

Recipe for Saturday Was Shepherd's Pie

Back closer to the brief, I made shepherd’s pie on Saturday morning.  Typically, Saturday turned out to be the last blast of the summer with one of the best day’s of the whole year – no wind, unbroken sunshine and a really relaxed day with friends an...

26 August 2009

Back on the shop floor at Steenbergs

I am currently working back on the Steenbergs shop floor as our chief blender, Alan, is on his annual holiday somewhere in Greece.  It is great fun to be back where it all began, blending the blends that I’ve created over the years and grinding organ...

31 July 2009

Recipe For Meatloaf - Ideal for a Cold Summer's evening!

The weather has been truly awful over the last few days – rain, rain and more rain.  It’s turned my mind towards thinking about terrines.  Terrines are really versatile – you can have the cold on a warm summers day served with new potatoes and salad,...

21 May 2009

What has Steenbergs done for Fairtrade?

13 May 2009

Indian pepper chicken recipe

This recipe really should have been posted closer to the blog on black pepper.

28 April 2009

Pepper - black gold

Pepper is the king of spices – it has had far reaching effects on trade, voyages of discovery, cultures and cuisines over the centuries.  To me, it embodies the wonder of spices – a distinctive, full-bodied flavour with an almost incredible influence...