About

Known as the Queen of spices, cardamom is native to Western India. It is intensely fragrant, warming and aromatic. A member of the ginger family, the use of cardamom dates back some 4000 years to the era of the Ancient Egyptians. It is used widely in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking in both sweet and savoury dishes. Due to its mildly sweet flavour cardamom is used to cut the bitterness in Turkish coffee. Today, the largest producer of Cardamom is Guatemala.  

Uses & Ideas 

Make a trellis pattern in a mango cheek. Sprinkle with ground cardamom and brown sugar. Grill until caramelised, serve with vanilla ice cream.

Add extra cardamom to your favourite masala recipe. Mix with yoghurt and use to marinate lamb, beef, poultry, or seafood.

Add ground cardamom to a sticky date pudding recipe for a fragrant variation.

Add a little ground cardamom to a vanilla panna cotta and serve with pineapple compote scented with saffron. 

Add ground cardamom to an orange syrup cake recipe.

Orange Cardamom Crinkle Cookies. Combine 220 gm flour, zest of 2 oranges, 2 tspn ground cardamon, 1 tspn baking powder. Cream 110 gm butter with 100 gm sugar. Add 2 whole eggs (one at a time). Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Roll into small balls, then into sifted icing sugar. Bake at 170 C for 12 minutes. Makes 20 cookies