What is Capparis spinosa used for?
Capers (Capparis spinosa) are frequently used in Mediterranean cuisine, meat dishes, pizzas, salads, and sauces. Caper buds and fruits, when salted and pickled, serve as a seasoning or garnish. Caper leaves are used in fish dishes, in salads, and as a replacement for rennet in cheese-making. Drain out any liquid you see accumulating in the jar, and top up with salt. Unfortunately, like olives, you can’t eat capers as they are, they’re too bitter, so salting them or brining them mellows them out and makes them edible.Capers are a common ingredient in Mediterranean cuisine, especially Cypriot, Italian, Aeolian Greek, and Maltese food. The immature fruit of the caper shrub are prepared similarly and marketed as caper berries. Fully mature fruit are not preferred, as they contain many hard seeds.There are more than 200 species of capers. They’re native to the tropics and the Mediterranean and are grown commercially in Morocco, Spain and Italy. They prefer dry heat, neutral-to-acidic soil and lots of sun.Capers are rich in antioxidants like quercetin and flavonoids, with powerful anti-inflammatory properties. Olives, especially black ones, offer healthy monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, and polyphenols, which help protect against cardiovascular diseases.Capers have traditional been used as folk medicine for hundreds if not thousands of years and are in current use or study for their potential as anti-cancer, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory properties, and their possible circulatory and gastrointestinal benefits.
What is the Indian name for Capparis spinosa?
Common name: Cartilage Caper Marathi name: कंथार Botanical name: Capparis spinosa subsp. Family: Capparaceae (Caper family) Cartilage Caper is a scrambling shrub which grows by spreading or scrambling over rocks. Capers are—technically speaking—a fruit. They come from a plant that grows along the Mediterranean sea called the Flinders rose. In Latin, that’s Capparis spinosa. They’re harvested from these small bushes in bud form, and undergo a curing process in vinegar or salt, and sorted by size.
Can Capparis spinosa grow in pots?
Caper bushes are spiny, trailing, deciduous shrubs native to the Mediterranean that like to creep in amongst rocks and limestone. Caper Bushes grow in zones 8-11 but, because they are slow growing, they can be grown outdoors in a pot in full sun during summer and brought in for the winter. Caper bush is rarely seen in British gardens, despite being frost tolerant to -8C when dormant, this useful small, evergreen shrub has the most beautiful, white-violet flowers with numerous long stamens, a little bit similar to the Silk tree (Albizia) flowers.