Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Spice guide to Caraway Seed along with all the Caraway Seed containing recipes presented on this site, with 137 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the spice-based recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Caraway Seed as a major flavouring.

Caraway Carum carvi (also known as Persian cumin, Wild Cumin, Carvies, Carroway) is a biennial plant, native to central Europe and western Asia. It is a member of the Apiaceae (also known as Umbelliferae) plants of which carrots and parsley are also members. The plant has divided feathery leaves and grows to between 20 and 30 cm tall. These bear flower stems that can grow to almost 60cm tall and bear white flowers in umbels (umbrella-like structures). When ripe the fruit are crescent-shaped and contain a single seed. (The fruit of the caraway plant are often, and erroneously, called seeds. If you actually open one of these fruit you will see that it bears a seed within).

The majority of European names for the plant derive from the Latin carum which was itself derived from the Greek karon [κάρον] which actually means 'cumin' and may be derived from the name of the ancient region of Caria in Asia Minor. When the word was adopted in Latin it came to mean caraway rather than cumin. The name then re-entered Greek as karvi [καρβί]. Though the modern English word, caraway, clearly belongs to this family, it actually derives from the Arabic al-karawya [‫الكراويا‬]) which, itself derives from the Latin carum.

It's aroma is generally anise-like but with more grassy overtones, similar to dill. The main aroma constituents of caraway essential oil being carvone and limonene, which gives caraway a slightly fruity note. It is mainly used in the cuisines of North, Central and Eastern Europe and also in the recipes of Tunisia and is used in both sweet and savoury dishes. The main producers today are Finland, the Netherlands, Eastern Europe and Germany and Egypt in North Africa.

The fruit are generally used whole in cooking and they have a pungent anise-like flavour. They are used especially in rye bread but are also used in casseroles and carrot cakes. Liqueurs are also flavoured with caraway seeds, as are a number of continental cheeses. Caraway seeds have been found at Stone Age and Iron Age sites across Northern Europe. Caraway is also useful when cooked in conjunction with beans as caraway has anti-flatulence properties.

Caraway fruit may contain 3% to 7% essential oil. The aroma of the oil is mostly dominated by carvone (50 to 85%) and limonene (20 to 30%); the other components carveol, dihydro­carveol, α- and β-pinene, sabinene and perillyl alcohol are of much minor importance.

Caraway is believed to have a native range extending from Central Europe to Asia; though it's not completely whether caraway is truly indigenous to Europe. Today, it is chiefly cultivated in Finland, the Netherlands, Eastern Europe and Germany, furthermore North Africa, particularly Egypt.

Caraway is beloved in Southern German and Austrian cuisine.