Safflower oil (kardi / karadi)
कुसुम का तेल · करडई तेल · ಕುಸುಬೆ ಎಣ್ಣೆ
Oils & Ghee
The everyday oil of the Deccan — Marathwada, western Maharashtra and north Karnataka. Thin, pale, faintly bitter raw and clean once it is hot.
What to know
Filtered kardi carries a taste that reads as home cooking across that belt and as slightly off to anyone expecting a neutral oil. Refined kardi has none of it, so the two are not the same purchase however similar the label looks. Swapping in sunflower makes a jowar-belt dish taste like it was cooked somewhere else.
- Choosing it
- Look for filtered or wood-pressed rather than refined, and buy a small bottle first — the flavour divides people. Cloudy sediment at the bottom of an unrefined bottle is normal, not spoilage.
- Storing it
- Away from light and heat. It goes rancid faster than groundnut oil, so buy in quantities you will finish within a couple of months rather than a five-litre tin.
- If you cannot get it
- Try: groundnut oil, sunflower oil
Measures
- 1 tsp ≈ 4.5 g
- 1 tbsp ≈ 13.5 g
- 1 cup ≈ 180 g
Cups here are the Indian 200 ml cup, not the 240 ml US cup — a common reason a recipe does not work. Weigh where you can; the grams are the figure we cook to.
Recipes using safflower oil
None published yet.