The Pantry / Green cardamom
Green cardamom
Elettaria cardamomum · elaichi · choti elaichi
The queen of spices — a pod that perfumes both the feast and the pudding.
What it is
Green cardamom is the small, pale-green three-sided pod of a ginger relative, holding a cluster of sticky black seeds where the fragrance lives. It is intensely aromatic — sweet, floral, faintly camphorous — and used whole (bruised), or as the ground seed for a purer hit. Often called the queen of spices, second in value only to saffron and vanilla.
Where it comes from
The plant is native to the Western Ghats of southern India and now grown there and in Guatemala, which supplies much of the world. Its perfume made it a spice-route treasure.
What it's called
Green cardamom · elaichi · choti elaichi (Hindi, “small cardamom”) · elach (Bengali). Botanically Elettaria cardamomum.
In the kitchen
Whole pods perfume biryani, korma and pilaf and are left in the dish or lifted out; the ground seed goes into masalas, sweets and spiced tea. It bridges savoury and sweet effortlessly — the same pod scents a rich Mughal gravy and a Bengali milk pudding. A little carries far.
What we know about the claims
Cardamom carries the usual digestive folk-reputation of warm spices, with some preliminary study behind it; in cooking quantities it is a flavour, not a remedy. No real caution beyond its cost tempting adulteration.
Choosing and buying
Buy whole green pods, plump and fragrant, rather than pre-ground seed; they keep their scent far longer. Every South Asian grocer and most supermarkets stock them (UK and US).