Spice Notes••5 min read
Cardamom, the queen of spices
Sweet or savoury, chai or biryani — few spices move as easily between worlds as green cardamom.
By Umiya Kitchen
If black pepper is the king of spices, green cardamom is unarguably the queen. It is one of the most expensive spices in the world by weight, and one of the most versatile: cool and eucalyptus-sharp, floral and faintly sweet, it slips into a masala chai and a mutton biryani with equal ease.
The trick with cardamom is knowing which part you want. Crush a whole pod and you get a bright, aromatic hit from the husk and seeds together. Grind only the tiny black seeds and the flavour turns deeper and more concentrated — this is what you want for kheer, kulfi and delicate sweets.
Colour is a fair proxy for quality. A vivid green pod has been dried carefully and holds its oils; a pale, bleached pod has usually been over-processed and lost some of its aroma. Give a pod a gentle squeeze — it should feel firm and rattle slightly, not crumble.
A last tip: fish the whole pods out before serving a rice dish, or warn your guests. Biting into a spent cardamom pod is a small betrayal nobody deserves at dinner.
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