Cardamom

Originally brought to Indonesia by Indian traders, cardamom is used very differently in its new home for while in India the ingredient commonly flavors milk-based sweets, in Indonesian cooking it is often used in savory dishes, for example Padang’s chicken curry.

However, what are actually used are the seeds of the ingredient only. The whole cardamoms come in forms of squat, papery pods about 6 millimeters long, which store tiny black seeds inside. They appear in various colors, namely green, white, black and brown, although the green one has more fragrance than the others and is the most recommended for use, with the white one being perceived as the bleached green cardamom.