Peugeot Roellinger Pepper Mill in Chili Red

This mill has a drawer. You crank the handle, the ground pepper falls into a small compartment underneath, and you can see exactly how much you have made before any of it reaches the food. No upright mill can do that, and it is the whole reason this shape exists.

• A measurable quantity Grind a tablespoon for a recipe and check it in the drawer instead of guessing over the pan.
• Crank rather than twist A handle turns the mechanism through more rotation per effort than a wrist can manage.
• Arrives unfilled No factory peppercorns to use up before you load the ones you actually want.

Where the Drawer Earns Its Place

Recipes call for a quarter teaspoon of pepper and upright mills answer with "a few twists". The drawer turns that into a number. Grind into it, look at what you have, and add exactly that to the pot. It also lets you prepare seasoning before you start cooking, which is the difference between pepper going in when the dish needs it and pepper going in when you get around to grinding it. The shape comes from Peugeot's old coffee mills, where the same argument applied to a different bean.

Two Stages Inside the Steel

A peppercorn is not crushed in this mechanism, it is cracked and then ground, in that order. Case-hardened steel carries two sizes of groove: the larger ones split each corn open and steer the halves into the smaller ones, which do the actual grinding. Splitting the corn first is what releases the oils that carry the smell, and it is why freshly ground pepper from a good mechanism smells like something while pre-ground pepper mostly does not.

Setting the Grind and Keeping It

The grind is set by lifting a spring tab and turning a thumbwheel, clockwise for finer. The tab then drops back and locks the wheel, which is the part that matters: a setting that holds is a setting you can rely on across a whole dinner. Case-hardened steel is chosen here for hardness rather than corrosion resistance, so salt has no business in this mill at all. Salt will attack the steel and the damage does not reverse.

Filling, Spices and Cleaning

What peppercorns suit a mill like this? Whole dry ones of any variety. Black, white and green all pass through the same mechanism, and because it arrives empty you can start with whichever you would rather be eating.

Can it grind spices other than pepper? Dry, hard spices of a similar size will pass, coriander seed being the common example. Anything oily or soft will smear inside the grooves rather than fracture, and once that happens it has to be brushed out dry.

How is a mill with a drawer cleaned? Empty the drawer and brush the mechanism dry. Water is what ruins a case-hardened mechanism, so nothing here goes near a sink, and a dry pastry brush reaches further into the grooves than rinsing ever would.