Egyptian Caraway (Karawya) - Whole Seed for Infusion

Caraway is the most misidentified seed in any spice shop, and both of the things it is mistaken for are already listed on this site. It is not cumin, though the seeds look alike enough that shops confuse them and several European languages give the two nearly the same name. It is not nigella either, despite nigella being sold half the world over as black caraway. The three taste nothing like one another.

What this is: Carum carvi, a biennial of the carrot family. The seed is really the dried fruit, splitting into two curved halves, each slender, ridged, dark brown and noticeably crescent-shaped. A cumin seed is straighter, blunter and paler. The flavour is led by carvone, the compound that also dominates dill, with limonene behind it. Cumin is led by cuminaldehyde instead, and that one substitution is the whole gap: caraway is sweeter, cleaner and anise-like, cumin earthy, hot and resinous.

The naming does most of the damage. German calls caraway Kuemmel and cumin Kreuzkuemmel, literally cross-caraway, so a German recipe asking for Kuemmel wants this pouch and not the cumin one. Swedish has kummin and spiskummin the same way round; Dutch karwij and komijn; Czech kmin and rimsky kmin. Arabic keeps them properly apart as karawya and kammun. If you have cooked from a translated recipe and the result tasted strange, this is very often the reason.

The second muddle is nigella, sold as black caraway and as black cumin and genuinely neither. Nigella sativa is not even in the same plant family, belonging with the buttercups, and it tastes oniony and peppery rather than sweet. It is an excellent seed and we sell it, but nothing calling for caraway will accept it in place.

In Egypt caraway is drunk more than it is cooked with. Karawya is a winter drink, sold hot by street vendors beside sahlab and made at home through the cold months: sometimes simply the brewed seed, sweetened, and sometimes thickened a little with starch and topped with chopped nuts and coconut, which turns a cup of tea into something nearer a pudding. It is one of the drinks Egyptians make for themselves rather than one sold to visitors.

Crack the seed before you brew it. The aromatic oil sits inside the fruit wall, so whole seed in hot water gives a thin, pale cup while the flavour stays at the bottom. Press a teaspoon with the back of a spoon, or give it a few turns in a mortar - cracked, not powdered - then water just off the boil, five to seven minutes, covered. Caraway is more assertive than anise, so start light.

In the kitchen it belongs to bread and to cabbage. It is the seed in northern European rye loaves and it goes into sauerkraut, braised red cabbage, coleslaw and the potato dishes of central Europe, where it also flavours goulash and a number of cheeses, Leyden and Havarti among them. Nearer to Egypt it is a backbone of Tunisian harissa and of tabil. Whole seed for a slow braise, cracked seed for a dough.

Caraway is a dense seed rather than a bulky leaf, so a kilogram is a compact brick and not a suitcase-filling pillow, which is why the full ladder up to 1 kg is offered here and not on the mints. In Egypt karawya has a long history of traditional use as an everyday winter drink taken after food. That is offered as a description of the custom, not as a health claim or medical advice.