Chiles and Spice, and Everything Nice
10 October 2008 by Jean Johnson
Here in Portland, Oregon, it’s as if Mother Nature threw a switch and autumn commenced. I’m sure golden days are yet to come, but at the moment it’s brisk and cloudy. Gone are the fresh tomatoes and the lean, clean flavors that taste so great when it’s hot. Here are chiles and spices and everything that make fall and the holidays so enticing, so mysterious, so fragrant and alluring.
Pictured are the outrageously hot Thai chiles, fresh from the Asian grocery down the street. One of these babies minced together with garlic puts serious wow-appeal in everything from soup to warm salads.
Then, of course, there’s the whole nutmeg. It goes on my cereal daily, fresh off the petite rasp grater a friend gave me. Once you get a taste–and a yen for the arresting smell–of fresh spices, you’ll be hard put to settle for the preground stuff.
The green pods are cardamom, that potent spice favored by Scandinavians for cookies, breads, and fruit soups. I’ve found that it also is lovely for dipped pears and oranges–as well as almonds. In fact, I included a recipe note for cardamom almonds in Beyond Measure–basically tossing toasted almonds in melted butter and dusting them with peppery cardamom.
Cardamom pods are great to work with while you’re watching one of the presidential debates or the latest news on our fearsome economy. Before I settle in in front of the tube, I crack the outer husks on the cutting board with a rolling pin. Then it’s just a matter of picking the dark brown spice out.
Once your tv-watching for the evening has come to a conclusion, a quick whirl in the coffee bean grinder nets you fresh, fragrant cardamom that will stay lovely throughout the holidays. Also cardamom’s bold smell is a great antidote for whatever you saw on the tube that didn’t set quite right. Free aroma-therapy and all that jazz.
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2 Responses to “Chiles and Spice, and Everything Nice”
Cardamom is used extensively in Arabic cooking too, from coffee, to stews, to sweets, you name it.
It is used in making Arabic coffee (of course as an added ingredient to the pulverized coffee beans which then are measured into the coffee kettle and brought to a boil, with or without sugar added first). In coffee made especially for Eid or for special occasions, there is often a whole lot more cardamom added to a lighter roast of coffee bean, and the brew is steeped to bring out the flavors.
Cardamom is added as a spice in tomatoes based stews or clear stews, it takes away the fatty taste (or so it is said), and adds an interesting and intreguing taste. Sometimes nutmeg, cardamom and Coriander are added together (ratios put cardamom as the least amount because of its strong flavor) into meaty combinations.
In sweets, wow, add the cardamom to the nutmeg and perhaps some cinnamon and it is a fall flavor into puddings and filo pastries (Backlawa and such), in milk pudding it substitutes nicely for Vanilla of a change of “olfactory sensory experience”..
Good Ol’Cardmom .. it does make the house smell as if on a safari in far away lands…. Thank You Jean
By Rula on Oct 11, 2008
Rula. Thanks so much. It’s like sitting at your kitchen table once again, learning about the exceptional culinary tradition you embrace.
More you make a great case for not worrying too much if there’s cardamom left in the coffee grinder for the next cuppa.
Definitely am trying that idea soon. Sounds perfect. Exotic. Fragrant. And not an extra calorie in it.
Also the idea of cardamom in place of vanilla opens up huge new vistas. And of course, I love the coriander, nutmeg, cardamom combo. Definitely can envision that in the tomatoes you mentioned as well as with winter squashes and in warm salads.
Yes, it seems as though it might be getting to a cardamom time of year.
By Jean Johnson on Oct 11, 2008