Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Herb guide to Water Pepper along with all the Water Pepper containing recipes presented on this site, with 4 recipes in total.

e This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Water Pepper as a major herb flavouring.

Water Pepper, Persicaria hydropiper, syn Polygonum hydropiper (also known as Smartweed, Marshpepper, Water Pepper Leaf, Marsh Pepper Smartweed, Japanese Water Pepper, Tade) is an herbaceous perennial belonging to the Polygonaceae (knotweed) family. It is a native of the temperate zones of temperate to tropical Eurasia, North Africa and North America and grows in damp places and shallow water. It is a close relative of Vietnamese Coriander but has almost no aroma and on chewing rapidly develops a pungent, biting-prickling heat that is similar in quality to Sichuan pepper.



The plant is an annual, growing to some 80cm in height and is typically found in marshy or waterlogged areas (particularly next to slow-flowing rivers and streams). The stems are erect, branched and with noticeable ribs. The leaves are covered with small bristles. Inflorescences are terminal, typically develop between May and November. The flowers are small, hermaphrodite and self-fertilizing. The plants have multicellular glands that exude and oil which can cause skin irritation in some people (and therefore they should be handled carefully) [hence the common name 'smartweed'], but these have been eliminated in the cultivars.



Water pepper leaves and dried seeds can therefore be substituted in any recipe that calls for Tasmanian pepper or Sichuan pepper. The bitterness of Water Pepper is due to the chemical rutin (also found in rue) and the pungency is due to polygodial (which is also found in Tasmanian pepperberry).



Yet, despite being common to many regions around the world is very seldom used in cookery. Indeed, the only major cuisine that makes use of this herb is Japanese. In Japan the plant's leaves are used as a vegetable; though these are from a cultivar rather than the wild version and it's used because it is pungent but has little other taste. As well as being used to flavour soups and salads they are also sometimes used as a garnish for sushi and sashimi. The seeds are also used as an ingredient in wasabi sauce.