Photo by Ola O. Smit
I must confess, when I seized upon a copy of A Whisper of Cardamom, I did so believing it to be a book with a single focus on this glorious spice alone. That it’s not is no rebuke to the book itself, which has a wider focus on spices in general and how they combine with a whole array of ingredients to heady effect. Eleanor Ford is an inspiring teacher, and it’s a joy to progress through her lessons in these pages. Did you know, for example, that adding ground ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, cinnamon or caraway boosts the fermentation of yeasted doughs? Or that cloves have long been associated with love and protection? Or that nutmeg is illegal in Saudi Arabia? And I should add that the book is laced with recipes that you will want to cook simply for their own sake: Milk Chocolate Tart with Nutmeg Pastry; Cinnamon Sugar Palmiers; New Zealand Ginger Crunch; Sweet, Roast Plums with Five Spice; Saffron and Orange Blossom Ice Cream; Violet Cream Chocolate Pots; Prune and Tamarind Tart; Spicy Butter Caramel Popcorn; Stone Fruit Galette with Marzipan and Long Pepper. Yes, I’m hungry now, too!
In choosing a recipe to share with you today, however, I did indeed draw from the opening chapter, An Ode to Cardamom: it just had to be these Rhubarb, Cardamom and Ricotta Parcels!
A Whisper of Cardamom: Sweetly spiced recipes to fall in love with by Eleanor Ford (Murdoch Books, £26).
Photography by Ola O. Smit.
