One spice to rule them all - recipe

Cardamom chicken needs no other spices. Picture: Tony Jackman

Cardamom chicken needs no other spices. Picture: Tony Jackman

Published Nov 6, 2013

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Cape Town - If spices were cars, vanilla would be a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air with off-white hubcaps – rare yet funky, stylish but not flash. Vanilla doesn’t need to take life too seriously. It’s there for the ice cream at the beach, the woodiness in the wine. Vanilla parks with a view of the ocean, listens to the flap of the gull’s wing, watches dozily as the surfer glides home.

If spices were cars, saffron would be a red Aston Martin DB cruising from Cannes to Juan les Pins, every eye on its curves as it arcs round bends and snakes its lithe form onward. Saffron knows its place, needs no compliments, implicitly understands its status, like a child born to royalty who will never doubt his lineage. You see that look in young George’s eyes. He has it.

But what of cardamom, that spice which flies its own path, tasting nothing like any other? Its hidden delights encased in a protective husk, cardamom seems to know something we don’t, or to have the wisdom to know that you have to be ready for unexpected eventualities in life.

Cardamom seems geared for the long haul, and the spice came to mind when I started reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath. Cardamom, then, would be a 1939 Hudson fresh from the Detroit plant, redolent of the hopes and dreams of a nation desperately trying to drag itself out of an economic depression that had already gripped it for an entire decade. It’s a whiff of the simple things, sometimes, that keeps you dreaming and hoping and believing there’ll be an end to it all.

As any observant reader will know by now, I use a lot of spices in my kitchen, and I tend to use several in one dish, whether making a curry or some other spiced concoction. I use loads of mustard seeds, jeera (cumin), fennel seeds, kulunji (which has been called “a remedy for all illnesses except death”), star anise, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger. Whether braised in ghee until they crackle, roasted in a dry pan to release their toasty flavours, or pounded with a mortar and pestle, in various combinations they can do special things to a dish.

But sometimes it’s worth taking just one of those spices and allowing it to be the “hero” of the dish, to use a word that has become overworked.

I decided to use cardamom this week as the sole spice flavouring in a chicken dish, and to really push the flavour. Cardamom being as distinctive as it is, you could use the seeds of only two or three pods to lend a whack of its gorgeous flavour to a cream sauce.

But if you’re eschewing the flavour carrier of cream, you can take a different route and use plenty more. What you lose in subtlety you gain in impact. But because I was really packing the cardamom in, I chose not to use wine, which risked masking it to a degree and losing the point of cardamom being the strongest element in the dish.

My tagine has become my vessel of choice for this kind of dish. Though it’s a Moroccan pot, with its conical lid, it’s only truly Moroccan when you’re cooking a Moroccan dish in it. But I use it for my curries, too, and for other casseroles. It’s ideal for this one but any suitable oven dish with a tight-fitting lid will do. And though I cooked this entirely on top of the stove, you can of course cook it in the oven.

 

Cardamom chicken

Seeds of 12 green cardamom pods

1 onion, finely chopped

1 fat or two smaller garlic cloves, chopped

8 whole green cardamom pods

2 or 3 chicken thighs a person

250ml chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste

Rice or barley as an accompaniment

Start by braising the seeds of 12 cardamom pods in olive oil on a medium heat for just a minute, then add 1 chopped onion and 1 fat (or two smaller) chopped garlic cloves. Sauté until softened, stirring, remove and keep aside.

Add eight cardamom pods (whole) to the pan and a little more olive oil, and brown the chicken pieces well on all sides. They should be nice and golden with plenty of colour. Remove the chicken pieces and keep aside.

Deglaze the dish with 250ml chicken stock. I used Nomu’s chicken fond, about 2 Tbs dissolved in 250ml water. I swear by this product.

Return the chicken pieces and the onion to the dish. Other than salt and pepper to taste, it really is as simple as that. All you need in addition is enough time for the chicken to become super-soft and all the flavours to develop.

When the chicken is done – about 45 minutes – spoon all the liquids into a pot and reduce until it’s a runny sauce, then return it to the dish.

I served this with barley, cooking one part of it to three parts water for 25 minutes, then leaving it covered on a low heat until all the water had been incorporated. I stirred into this one onion which I had chopped and sautéed in olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

Eat it and dream of a time when cars had character and individualism, and when there was no soul-destroying sameness to it all. It should put some vooma in ya. - Weekend Argus

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