What is the difference between white and black pepper?

• Recipe collection: 20 dishes make the most of pepper

What is the difference between white and black pepper? B. Nicholas

White pepper is made from fully ripe pepper berries (Piper nigrum) that are soaked in water and fermented, the outer skin removed, and the white heart milled into a light grey powder.

Black pepper, on the other hand, comes from unripe berries that are dried, hence the black and shrivelled skin.

White pepper has a slightly more complex herbaceous flavour than black, adding a fine kick of heat without the black flecks that would discolour a pale dish. It is the pepper used in Chinese dishes such as salt-and-pepper calamari, congee and hot and sour soup.

Thai people swear by Thai Prik powdered white pepper, and often have a colourful tin sitting on the table as a condiment. Thai cooks use it to add punch to dishes like goong tod kratiem prik Thai (prawns fried with garlic and white pepper).

Freshly ground berries will give you a fuller aroma than pre-ground white pepper.

White pepper gives a kick to Indian white gravy, the mother sauce to myriad North Indian dishes such as malai kofta and khoya paneer, without the black bits.

In the Western kitchen, it's useful for seasoning potato or fish dishes and bechamel sauce. White pepper has a shorter shelf-life than black. Freshly ground berries will give you a fuller aroma than pre-ground white pepper. You can grind it in a mortar with a pestle, but a clean coffee grinder will give you a finer end result.

Can you freeze basil? S. Langtry

It's getting cold, and the basil has left its young mid-summer tenderness behind as its leaves get thicker and the aroma less bright.

Soon the days will be too short for the plants, and they will begin to lose leaves as the seeds harden, and the plants finish their short annual life cycle.

Those late-season leaves still have many of the essential oils such as citral, eugenol and linalool, and these can be captured by adding a small handful of leaves to a medium jar, topping up with olive oil and leaving in a warm place for a day or so. Strain off the oil and store in a sealed jar or bottle in the fridge.

Alternatively, blitz similar amounts of basil and oil in a food processor to make a green slurry, pour into ice-cube moulds and freeze.

They should form soft blocks that can be stored in plastic bags and added to slow-cooked dishes and pasta sauces over winter.

Letters

Apologies to the chemists and distillers who were offended when I incorrectly used the words "ethanol alcohol" instead of ethyl alcohol in a recent question about freezing vodka.

In regards to saffron, J. Simmonds wrote: "We learned a little trick in a paella class in Valencia. Take a clean piece of white paper, fold in half, open it and place your precious pinch of saffron in the fold. Then with the back of a spoon, crush the saffron by rubbing. This method powders the saffron and gets the best value from it."

Send your culinary conundrums and ingredient questions to brainfood@richardcornish.com.au or Twitter and Insta @foodcornish.