Taste the World Spice Club: Urfa Biber

Introducing the Taste the World Club, a collaboration between the Scarsdale Public Library and Apiary at the Library.  

Each month we will provide a small amount of a different spice or spice blend from a different part of the world.  Cook with the spice and join us for a Zoom discussion of what we each made.  Participants will share tips, recipes and opinions of how their sampling the spices went. 

For February, we will be cooking with Urfa Biber, also known as Isot Pepper, which is a dried Chili from Turkey.  The spice gets its name from the region in Turkey it's grown in (Urfa) and the Turkish word for pepper (Biber). 

It's typically described as having chocolate, raisin, and coffee flavors (smoky, sour, and sweet all in one). It has a little bit of heat as well, though it is not very hot.  

Urfa is a red pepper that turns a dark red on the vine. The peppers are sun-dried and go through a sweating process, where they are wrapped tightly at night, which helps preserve the moisture. This process darkens the skin. The pepper flakes range from deep purple to black.