Aleppo Pepper

Aleppo pepper, halaby filfil in Arabic and pul biber in Turkish, is a coarse oil-slicked red flake built from Capsicum annuum grown in a belt that once straddled the northern Syrian plain around Aleppo and the Gaziantep province of southern Turkey. The fruit is harvested deep red, partially sun-dried, then slit, deseeded by hand, salted at around two to three percent, and coated with a thin film of sunflower or olive oil before being rough-milled. The finished flake is moist, clumpy, and matte crimson, closer in handling to a paste-adjacent condiment than to a dry powder. Heat registers around 10,000 Scoville — moderate, round, without the hard front of a cayenne — and the flavour runs through toasted cumin, preserved lemon, sun-dried tomato and raisin. Since the Syrian war began in 2011, most commercial "Aleppo pepper" on Western shelves is in fact Gaziantep-grown Turkish pul biber processed in the same style; genuine Syrian material is rare and comes out via Beirut or the diaspora. Either way the flake anchors a specific Levantine register: muhammara, kibbe, manakish, fattoush, and a final-minute dusting on grilled lamb or shakshuka.