Piquillo peppers: In search of

DeLallo piquillo peppersPiquillo peppers, little cone-shaped red peppers, are often stuffed with seafood and sometimes meats to make the appetizers and snacks known as tapas in Spain.

Authentic Pimientos del Piquillo grown in the Navarra region of Spain are a product of protected origin, much like certain French cheeses and Italian cured meats.

I was searching for them as cute edible containers for a lentil salad recipe. Never found them. What I did find was a variety from Peru, where these trendy peppers are now frequently grown for export -- even to Spain. 

Surprisingly, the piquillo peppers I found locally at the Vauxhall Whole Foods store in Union are bottled by the Italian food company DeLallo, which offers piquillos among its variety of peppers, olives and antipasti.

In a blog on the company's site, Anthony DiPietro, grandson of company founder George DeLallo reveals that he, too, searched for piquillo peppers. "There is not an overabundance of piquillo peppers grown in northern Spain," writes DiPietro, part of the team that researches and selects products for the brand.  The ones grown in Spain are very expensive and kept in the country for consumption, he says.

But you can get Spanish piquillo peppers here if you are willing to buy them online -- and pay the price. The Spanish imports at Amazon.com and LaTienda.com were going for about $11 for a 7-ounce bottle, compared to $3.98 online for a 12-ounce jar of the DeLallo Peruvian piquillos.  

In recipes at DeLallo.com, piquillo peppers are stuffed with imported tuna, tossed in a salad with hearts of palm, and blended into hummus or a garlicky butter spread.

The question of where to buy piquillo peppers also pops up frequently online, and there's often a suggestion to substitute roasted pimientos, the large, sweet red peppers that become paprika when  dried and ground into powder. While pimientos would work as a substitute in recipes that would require piquillos to be chopped or pulverized, you need the genuine article for stuffing. 

Just to be sure, I bought bottled Goya pimientos for testing the lentil salad recipe. They were much larger than the piquillos and usually not whole. By contrast, the smaller piquillos were always whole and never more than 4 inches long. The flavor, however, was comparable. Both types of peppers are roasted, slightly sweet, with no spicy heat. 

Here's what I did with the lentil salad recipe