A mild, Camembert-like goat's milk cheese, either cylindrical in shape or square. Twice Bronze Medal winner at the British Cheese Awards.
Cara is a large, round main crop potato with creamy flesh which is a good all-rounder. Best baked, boiled or sautéed.
Caraway seeds are very versatile and may be used to flavour confectionary, cheeses, stews, cabbage dishes, cakes and breads. Seeds are also used in savoury dishes.
Cardamom is a highly prized spice used in flavouring curries and puddings. The pods are often add to dishes, but should be discarded, as they are woody. The flavour is in the seeds, which can also be added to black coffee or milky tea. Cardamom pods grow on low fronds of a palm-like bush. They are hand-picked and then laid out on drying floors. AS with saffron and vanilla, other labour-intensive crops, this adds hugely to the cost. Like them, it is a king of spices. Cardamom is often used in puddings, such as rice pudding, but is also good mixed with a little oil and used to dress fish.
Red mullet or surmullet. A high quality fish of a different family from the other (grey) mullets, and which has a far better flavour and lean, firm flesh. Its liver is highly prized. Do not confuse it with gurnard, which has a slightly paler colour. This fish may vary from pinkish-reddish crimson to rosy pink in colour with golden streaks and two long barbels on the chin. Mullus barbatus is the smaller of the two and is of not quite such good quality. Mullus surmuletus is more properly known as surmullet and is larger.
The cardoon is a white vegetable from southern Europe, it is a member of the thistle family, as is the globe artichoke. It resembles a large coarse head of celery and is similar to fennel, and stalks are blanched in the same way that celery is. The stalks are flat, long and wide, with notched sides and a suede-like finish. They should be grated and peeled, in the same way as celery, and it is cooked in the same way. In many parts of Europe they are likely to be served with ham, in a white sauce, or braised. They certainly benefit from long, slow cooking. Traditionally in the UK, sacking was placed around the stems to blanch them. The covering was then stripped off leaving the pith which was added to stews.
