The Spice Cabinet: Cardamom

 

From top left clockwise: ground green, green seeds, whole green pods, whole black pods

I promise, I'm not just doing all the spices that start with C. If coriander and cumin are the bases of a lot of savory spice mixes, cardamom is from the land of sweets, though you'll frequently find it playing in the savory pool in Indian cuisine. You're most likely to have experienced cardamom in Indian food, where it plays a prominent role in many desserts, and also in tea (chai frequently has cardamom in it, if you've wondered why simply adding mulling spice to your tea didn't make it taste quite right), but while it's wonderful when paired with sweet flavors, you're missing out if you don't try it with something assertive and meaty.

Taste

When most people think of cardamom they think of the green variety, but confusingly there's a black cardmom as well. Black cardamom is a slightly different variety of the plant, and the seed pods are larger and have been dried over a fire, so the end result is smoky and quite strong. You probably won't find black cardamom in sweets; it has both an intense smoked flavor, like a chipotle, but also a more intense resinous flavor than green cardamom does. It's harder to find, but well worth trying.

Green, in both pods and whole seeds, is bright, slightly anesthetic like clove, and mildly like camphor or perhaps menthol. It's not sweet, exactly, but in a pairing with sweetness it enhances the sweet flavors already present in the cardamom. When it's uncooked and fresh, there are floral aromas as well, though these become less floral and more subtle when heated. If you chew the pod, the seeds have the most pop, but the pod itself does have some of the subtler flavors as well, which is why often recipes call for cooking the whole pod in sauce or syrups.

Ground, much of the intense burst and anesthetic qualities rapidly diminish, and you're left with those more subtle floral notes and some of the resinous qualities. If you're cooking with cardamom, ground is perfectly fine because many people find fresh cardamom to be too intense. Like a bay leave, it flavors but a lot of folks will pick out pods rather than chewing them, even after cooking.

The honest truth is that you're unlikely to ever experience cardamom raw and by itself, so while the exercise of tasting it is useful, it's not that instructive. Most of the time cardamom is cooked enough that its taste mellows and becomes sweeter, even in savory dishes.

One tip: ground cardamom is fairly expensive, and if you have a spice grinder and can get whole for cheaper per pound, don't bother de-husking the seeds; just grind the whole thing. If you get it fine, you'll never know the pods are in there and you'll get a cardamom powder which contains all the subtle notes. Similarly, if a recipe calls for roasting cardamom, roast it in its pod and then grind. The delicate oils in the seeds scorch more easily, and the pod will protect them.

Pairings

The obvious pairings are with sweet things. If you want to spice up your pumpkin spice mix, add a little ground cardamom. If you want to make your rice pudding more like kheer, the Indian rice pudding, add a little cardamom. Cardamom in simple syrup is great in cocktails, or over vanilla ice cream. Anything with vanilla will pair well with cardamom; they serve similar functions in a dessert, though many people find cardamom more assertive. I don't personally care for vanilla, so I find myself using cardamom in place of it in many applications.

Cardamom and rice are made for each other. Toss a few pods or a teaspoon of powder in with the rice as it cooks and the floral aromas will permeate the air, to say nothing of how the rice will taste. Cardamom and coconut go very well together as well; instead of making a piña colada, use cardamom simple syrup to make a cardamom colada.

More and more people are discovering the joys of spiced hot chocolate, but while cinnamon and chile have made their way into mixes, cardamom gets left out in the cold. A pinch of cardamom in hot chocolate or coffee and you might need less sugar. In fact, that's the wonderful thing about cardamom; it makes things taste a little sweeter, so you need less sweetness. As mentioned at the top, cardamom and tea are perfect together, though if you're going to steep it, use the pods; you can probably reuse them for multiple cups of tea. Similarly, if you're of the mulled-wine persuasion, add a few pods to your mulling.

If you're lucky enough to find black cardamom, it too pairs wonderfully with rice, giving a smoky, umami note to things. It's also important in some masalas, and if you find yourself making an Indian dish where it's traditionally cooked in the tandoor, a wood-fired oven, subbing in black cardamom for green some give some of that smoked taste which is harder to achieve at home (or just use liquid smoke, no shame).

A lot of people would stop there, or save this for the weird suggestion at the end, but cardamom, green or black, pairs with meat in a way which you wouldn't expect. I would recommend darker meat for this, like dark meat poultry, fattier cuts of pork, or beef. Cardamom and red wine as a base for a meaty sauce might fit most folks' definition of the weird suggestion at the end, but for me, it's just a nice pairing that people are missing out on. 

As far as with other spices, cardamom plays very well with fenugreek seed powder, which may be another hard one to find but is well worth finding. Fenugreek is a base for many of the more yellow varieties of curry powder, so if you want to check out cardamom in a savory context, add a little the next time you use a curry powder. Black cardamom works here too, but it also pairs well with cumin in smokey, earthy dishes.

The Weird Suggestion at the End

This isn't so much weird as something one doesn't think of, but if cardamom is good with rice, why wouldn't it be good with another starch, like potatoes?

That's it.

...

No, only kidding. The Nordic countries are quite fond of cardamom, and they're also fond of mashed rutabaga, so why not combine the two? This probably won't shock anyone from that neck of the woods, but mashed rutabagas have quite a lot of sweetness to them, and cardamom brings out sweetness. Boil your rutabagas until tender, mash them with plenty of butter, then add cardamom until you can just taste it. It'll bring out the sweetness. Or you can try boiling them with a few cardamom pods, just like you would with rice.

Now, returning to my potato comment, if you can do it with rutabaga, why not with mashed potatoes? That's a little off the beaten path. Don't go too far or you'll have dessert, but a little cardamom, particularly if you roasted it first, will add a fun note to bland potatoes. It pairs well with black pepper too. Or try some black cardamom powder on roasted potatoes for a smoky kick.

And lastly, here's a weird one: try black cardamom in dessert. Go very light at first, because black cardamom is more intense than green even before you factor in the smokiness. If you've had chipotle with chocolate, try black cardamom. It'll surprise you.

So don't just use cardamom in your scones. Try it out with your next meat and potato meal. This is cookable.