cardamon seeds

origin: Guatemala

Loose black seeds from green cardamon (or cardamom!) pods, the seeds are useful to incorporate the delicious flavour and scent of green cardamon into your food without the hassle of using the pods.

uses: Crush the cardamon seeds or grind them to add to a marinade or curry paste. Add crushed cardamon seeds to tea or coffee, particularly green tea with a spoonful of sugar.

Spice Notes

Origin: Southern India and Sri Lanka
Ours come from: Guatemala

cardamon growing n Sri Lanka - you can see the bright green pods at the bottom of the plant

The flavour is aromatic, pungent, sweet and slightly camphorous with a gently eucalyptus-like taste. Cardamon is as equally good in sweet as it is in savoury, and is used widely from southern Indian curries to Scandinavian sweet baking.

Cardamon first appeared in Europe when The Vikings first brought cardamon to the Nordic countries on their return from Constantinople. Known as the 'queen of spices', it was the most expensive spice in 16th Century Europe during the spice trading days where it was highly prized for both its taste and its medicinal qualities. Due to its high cost, cardamon has traditionally been used in this part of the world as a festive spice and still today it makes a very welcome mark in European sweet baked niceties around Christmas.

Also used widely in the Arabic world, cardamon seeds are ground with coffee before boiling with plenty of sugar. This tradition has led to the region being the largest importer of the spice in the world. India is the largest producer, but as most is used within the country, it makes Guatemala the biggest exporter of Cardamon, where cultivation is less than a century old, making it a fairly modern endeavour.
Cardamon pods benefit from being bruised with the flat of the knife before adding to dishes. The seeds can also be taken out and finely ground.

Loose black seeds from green cardamon (or cardamom!) pods, the seeds are useful to incorporate the delicious flavour and scent of green cardamon into your food without the hassle of using the pods. Once removed from the pod, the cardamon seeds don't keep their fragrance as long and especially so with ground seeds, need to be used relatively quickly to make the most of the stunning scent and flavour.


Medicinal Properties:
A warming spice, Good for indigestion, calmative, aphrodisiac, freshens breath – particularly garlic breath! Good for teeth. It benefits the cardiovascular system by lowering blood pressure and preventing clotting. There was even an Indian Cardamon Research Institute devoted entirely to the study of the medical benefits of Cardamon.

Uses:

• It can also be added as part of a masala tea (boil spices, cardamom, peppercorns, cinnamon..., in water 15min before taking off the heat and adding a tea bag and some milk), or Infuse in milk with honey for a comforting night time drink (good for kids).

• Fry 3-4 cardamon pods in oil with other whole spices at the start of a curry. Particularly in South Indian Cuisine, We’ve used this in our keralan fish and cochin curries.

• Add a few cardamom pods during cooking to make a perfumed rice. Used alongside cinnamon, cloves, cumin seed, and black peppercorns for a pilau rice.  

• Add to rice, both sweet and savoury. Flavour rice pudding.

• Likes dairy, Almonds – add to a frangipane

• Often used with orange flowers and rose in sweet things. Infused together with water or sugar syrup (bash them first). Rose and saffron

• Baklava