How To Use Cardamom? You Should Know This
Have you ever been so curious as to how to use cardamom? Do you know what it is already? What recipe can it be an ingredient for? What are the materials that you need to prepare in order for you to perform this recipe?
It is not enough that you are curious about the things, it is also important that you know the answer to your question because you might just use it for your own advantage.
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In order for you to refrain from the impending embarrassment of not knowing what it is or how to use it, you have to keep holding on to this article and get a good grip as you will be exploring a way to get your cardamom into cooking.
First we have to know what it is. A cardamom is typically a spice that tend to appear all throughout the cuisine of classical Indian. It is also extensively used to flavor coffee in the middle East. While vanilla is for Americans, cardamom is for the Indians.
It comes with three varieties: Green or true cardamom, white cardamom, and black cardamom. Each has their own distinct tastes which could greatly alter the outcome of your recipe.
Now that you already have an idea as to what a cardamom is, you have to prepare the necessary materials that are going to be needed in making a recipe in which a cardamom is to be of much use.
Ingredients
1. Cardamom
You have to always choose the green one because it has a complex flavor that makes it possible to compliment dishes which are both sweet and savory. Specifically, you have to choose the football-shaped ones which are small enough also.
They should have a scent like that of a potpourri of pine and flowers. As much as possible, avoid the black cardamom because it has a lesser appealing flavor than that of the green ones. Black cardamom s are somehow viewed as one of its types wherein the taste is not as delicate as that of the green one.
2. Cardamom pods
You can make this one but for a better quality, just buy cardamom pods instead of just grounding cardamoms. You have to realize that for a year or longer, the whole of the spice remains potent.
The seeds that you will be needing which are placed inside the pods can be quickly ground with the use of a mortar and pestle. You see, a ground cardamom may just lose its flavor in an instant of it being grounded.
Equipments
Mortar and pestle
It is important to know that the best avenue for processing the cardamom pods is through the mortar and pestle for its flavor to remain intact and for its scent to stay in these facilities.
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Also it is important that you do not use a spice grinder nor a coffee grinder as it will only make the seeds that are waxy to orbit the blade of the spice grinder and end up being chopped roughly.
You can still use it, but you have to take extra time for it to be ground just as fine as that of the mortar pestle method can do. Doing this might cause you to exert more effort and wait for a longer time so that you can be certain that such recipe is not greatly and negatively affected by the outcome of your ground cardamom.
Directions
Now that you already have an idea as to what to prepare for a recipe which uses cardamom, you are ready to go on with reading this article and learning how to use cardamom.
Step 1. Heat the pods.
Just like any other spices that you may have already known, a cardamom can be used either whole or ground. With the cardamom pods at hand, we have to execute this step in such a way that the cardamom we are talking about is whole. These must be heated up in order for its essential oils to surface as the seeds release it.
Step 2. Turn the cardamom into powder.
To do this, you have to crack the pods in order for them to open up. Crack them into your mortar with the assistance of the pestle. After doing this, you can pick the papery husks out so that it would not tamper your cardamom. After this you can grind the pebbly seeds until it turns into nothing but powder.
You can also use the spice grinder in turning the cardamoms into powder with other spices. The said spices have to fill the base of the grinder of more or less a third of it. When you have sufficient traction in your spice grinder, your cardamom will now have a difficulty in escaping the blade. Therefore, the grinding process can be said to be effective.
Here Are A Few Tips
When you grind the cardamom with other spices of smaller quantity, you can try removing the papery pods that can be found upon turning it into powder. These will only have its way around the blade, whirling and unscathed, powdering them together with the other spices.
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You can also try powdering the cardamom in a mortar and pestle before adding it to the grinder with other spices to be ground together.
Did you enjoy the tutorial? I hope that you do because that is one way of learning, to enjoy and have fun in doing what you are doing, or what you will have to do.
This tutorial is for you to know how a cardamom can be used in cooking. You see, it is a kind of spice. It is like an appetizer in your food which can boost your desire to eat a lot, to be a healthy individual. And in cases wherein you are the cook, at least you do know this already and you can have the can have the other people savor your food, and encourage them to be healthy too.
If you have any questions, unspoken thoughts, or if you just want to be heard out, you can just leave a comment below to let me know what you are thinking about cardamom and other uses that it has which you know of. It is so likely that there are a lot of other things that a cardamom can make, we just have to discover them.
Again, if you do have a question, opinion, or thoughts that you would want to share, you can just leave a comment below to let us know.
