Steenbergs Black Cardamom Pods

Black cardamom is dark brown, rough and ribbed with wings, then inside there are black, sticky seeds. Its flavour is smoky, woody, musty and camphorous.

Black cardamom is great in  pickles, Indian curries like butter chicken, chicken tikka masala or a lamb masala or infuse a yoghurt dressing with a crushed black cardamom pod before removing it just before serving.

Axel’s Tasting Notes: Pungent: smoky, astringent, antiseptic, camphor flavours.

More of Black Cardamom

Black Cardamom plants are similar to Green Cardamom plants. They have long, lance-shaped leaves that grow to 2 m in length and rise high above the centre of the plant, giving a dramatic arching and flamboyant shape to the bushes.

The pods are the fruit of the black cardamom plant and grow in small spikes close to the ground. The oval pods are 2.5 cm long and have a deep red colour when ripe. The seed casing contains around 40 dark-brown and hard seeds.

The dried brown cardamom pods are dark brown and rough with a fibrous outer surface; when you peel back this leathery outer layer, you uncover the small tar-coloured seeds, while releasing a really strong, camphorous aroma.

The smoky aroma of brown cardamom comes from the processing of the pods, whereby the picked pods are dried on platforms over a fire with the hot, smoky air from the fire imparting the distinctive lapsang souchongy aroma.