Cooking Index - Cooking Recipes & IdeasCardamom in our A-Z (Page 3) - Cooking Index

Cardamom

Cardamom is a spice that is a relative of the ginger family. It comes in a variety of forms

Cardamom is used in a variety of sweet and savory dishes. It is particularly popular throughout Scandinavia for baking. It also goes particularly well with both chocolate and orange. However it is most commonly used in Indian food.

Cardamom imparts a very strong, aromatic fragrance to foods and should be used sparingly.  

The best cardamom tends to come from Sri Lanka and south Indian where it is an important part of the cuisine.

Cardamom is sold in a variety of formats - in the pod, as seeds and ground up. Cooking Index recommends only buying the pods as the flavor of the cardamom swiftly disipitates once the pod is removed. An easy guide is that 7 cardamom pods will usually produce approximately one teaspoon of cardamom seeds.

Cardamom is used in traditional medicines in China and India. It can also be chewed to relieve painful teeth and in some parts of the Indian subcontinent you can buy cardamom flavored chewing gum.