Customer Reviews

Cardamon Green - Whole - 4 OZ

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Cardamom is the essential spice in Swedish sweet breads and pastries; without cardamom, a Danish pastry is just a Missouri sticky-bun filled with jam. Adventurous Swedish cooks - both of us - also use cardamom in fruit glazes for roast chicken.

But cardamom is quintessentially an Indian spice, one of those that Vasco da Gamba and Cristoforo Colon sailed over the edge of the world for. It's included in most "garam masala" spice blends. It's also one of the prominent flavors in 'tom ka gai', the Thai chicken-coconut soup. Indian shoppers in San Francisco buy it in one-pound sacks or larger. Some Indian people, especially older men, chew cardamom like candy or gum, to improve their breath and their amative fervor. Cardamom ice cream is rapidly becoming popular in Cambridge, Masssachusetts, as well as in the SF Bay Area. Coffee drinkers from Austria to Afghanistan, and especially in Turkey and Lebanon, often flavor their beloved drink with cardamom. Chocolate and cardamom also blend well; adventurous Mexican cooks - me - sometimes add cardamom to 'mole poblano', the chocolate-chili gravy used with turkey and chicken.

Once ground, cardamom loses its flavor very quickly; a small bottle of cardamom powder is convenient but should be used within two weeks at most. Serious cardamom-lovers buy it whole, in the pod, and grind the small black seeds as needed, in a 'dedicated' coffee mill or with a mortar-and-pestle. The green outer pods shouldn't be wasted; they can be used to flavor stocks that will be strained, or added to the grounds in a filter cone to make coffee. More intense cardamom flavor in coffee requires adding the well-ground seeds.

Cardamom and most other 'aromatic' Indian spices lose their flavor with prolonged heat. They should be added very near the end of any cooking process, especially in curries. Anglo-American curry powder is a debasement of culinary art; it's mostly turmeric, which should be stirred into the frying oil early in the process while the aromatics are reserved for finishing.

There are two sorts of cardamom available in American stores and here on the amazon: the small green pods and the larger black pods. They have somewhat different flavors, the black ones being stronger and earthier, but in most dishes they are interchangeable. Both kinds of cardamom are more intense when fresh, so a 4 to 7 ounce package is appropriate, assuming that it will be used up in two months or less.

Here's a puzzle for bold chefs: what large bird should always be served with a glaze of lingonberries, chipotle chilis, cardamom, and shallots?

It was good but we have to be careful with the shells while cooking with rices or others. Do not eat the shells. Just take it out before serve. Thank you very much

well now i no longer have to wait for friends to send me arabic coffee from palestine, i can make it myself here in the US of A. i typically roast a handfull of cardamon and then mix it with the Arabic Yemini coffee -also from amazon- and grind it realy fine. this makes a perfect cup of coffee.

cardamon is also great on ground meat, i usualy add it to my burgers and they taste fabulous.