This Warm Spice Transforms Humble Beans Into Something Special
Beans are a blank canvas for cooking, offering a mild, earthy flavor that can soak up whatever you cook them with, be it garlic, chiles, smoky spices, or fresh herbs. The secret to adding even more dimension is cardamom.
Green cardamom (most common in the supermarket) is bright, floral, and a little sweet with notes of citrus and mint. One great recipe that uses it is Indian chickpea curry chana masala (yes, chickpeas are beans). Here, pods are bloomed in oil with cumin, coriander, and cinnamon before tomatoes are added, giving the chickpeas a bright, herbal, and citrusy lift. If you're seeing cumin and coriander and thinking "bean chili," that's one setting where cardamom may not be standard, but it would add a certain je-ne-sais-quoi. Green cardamom is also popular in sweeter dishes, so you could consider adding some to maple- or molasses-baked beans, where it'll play well with flavors like allspice or ginger.
Black cardamom is more intense, with a smoky, resinous depth that goes alongside cumin or smoked paprika. It's a staple of South Asian bean and lentil dishes, and will probably work well in heavier or more intensely flavored bean dishes. Refried beans are one option, or perhaps meaty cowboy beans.
How to use different types of cardamom
Cardamom is sold as whole pods, loose seeds, or ground powder, and how you use them depends on which kind you get. Whole pods are best simmered low and slow, toasted, or bloomed in hot oil or ghee to intensify the spice's flavors. Seeds are typically ground then added to recipes, and this may be preferable to buying pre-ground cardamom, as it tends to lose flavor while it sits on the shelf; ground is probably an easier place to start to skip the extra toasting or blooming step.
Either way, cardamom usually appears alongside spices that are already adding a bunch of flavor to your bean pot — cumin, coriander, cinnamon, clove, or chiles. If you're working green cardamom into chili as mentioned earlier, around three pods for a recipe that serves six to eight is likely enough; for ground, start with around a ½ teaspoon. For black cardamom in a stew-type setting, one pod is probably sufficient unless you're cooking serious bulk batches. Ground black cardamom is pretty pungent, so you may be better off just sticking to pods here. Be careful not to get them mixed up. Swap one for the other, and you'll notice: Green won't have that deep smoky taste, while black may override any more delicate flavors.
Overall, you probably won't want to just throw cardamom and beans together alone. Instead, work them into an existing recipe to complement existing flavors like warming spices. Start with just a little, and if you like what you taste, you can always add more.
