Quick Bite: Wine & Dine
A few easy steps revive the forgotten—but delicious—tradition of flavored sherry
A lingering legacy from the days when Carolina was part of Colonial Britain is a condiment created by steeping hot peppers, onions, or a similarly assertive flavoring in sherry. The most common type was pepper sherry, once found in almost every locale where Britain established a colony, particularly in the warm-weather belt of the tropics and subtropics.
While pepper sherry is still used throughout the Caribbean and South Africa today, almost all such seasonings have disappeared from Charleston’s foodways. The only reminder of them is a vague but intriguing little recipe for “Onion Sherry” tucked among the seafood cocktail sauces of the Junior League’s timeless Charleston Receipts, printed in 1950.
As late as the early 1970s, these condiments could still be found on a few of the city’s traditional tables but were already beginning to fade from use. By the turn of the century, they had vanished. The reason is a mystery, especially when one tastes what a few transforming drops can do in a pot in the kitchen or a bowl at the table. The combination of fiery pepper or onion and sweet wine makes the perfect flavoring for cream and bean soups and is absolutely delicious with local shellfish, especially shrimp and crab.
Making flavored sherry is not at all difficult and need not cost the world. The recipe for onion sherry, included here, calls for “cooking sherry,” which is cheap wine salted to make it undrinkable—a concoction left over from Prohibition. Though you can still get this ingredient, a good, moderately priced amontillado or cream sherry would be the better choice, with a large pinch or so of quality sea salt dissolved into it to help lift the flavors.
Onion Sherry
Excerpted from the 1950 classic Charleston Receipts
- 1 cup thinly sliced white onion or shallots
- 1 cup medium dry amontillado or cream sherry
Pepper Sherry
- 1/2 cup small hot peppers
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup medium dry amontillado or cream sherry
Put the onion or shallots in a clean jar or bottle that will hold at least two cups. Pour the sherry over them, stop or seal well, and steep for at least 24 hours before using.
To use the flavored sherry, decant into a cruet or bottle. The sherry can be replenished twice, after which, discard the onion and begin in a clean jar with fresh onion.
Pepper Sherry
Rinse the peppers in cold water, drain, and put them in a Pyrex or other ovenproof bowl. Bring water to a rolling boil and pour it over the peppers. Let stand one minute and drain.
Put the peppers in a clean cruet (cut glass–do not use leaded crystal), jar, or bottle that will hold at least 1½ cups. Pour the sherry over them, stop or seal well, and steep for at least 24 hours before using. Gently shake the cruet after 24 hours to distribute the peppery oils.
