Small green peppers fried whole in olive oil until blistered, then salted — most of them mild, now and then one hot.
What makes it pimientos de padrón
Small green Padrón peppers, whole.
Fried in olive oil until the skins blister.
Coarse salt, and nothing else.
Where it comes from
They're grown in the parish of Herbón, beside Padrón, where Franciscan friars are said to have brought the seeds back from the Americas. The peppers are picked small and young, when most are mild; the longer they grow, the more of them turn hot.
The saying goes 'uns pican e outros non' — some are hot and some aren't — and that's half the fun of a plate.