Cardamom seeds, here's how to use them

Cardamom is also good for health: the stomach, intestines and airways benefit the most.

Ayurvedic medicine considers cardamom as an excellent cure for bowel and urinary system problems, for coughs and hemorrhoids, but also for teeth care and gum inflammation, colds and digestion problems, while medicine traditional Chinese uses it for stomachache and dysentery.

This spice with a unique flavor has then gone around the world, arriving also in Sweden and Denmark where it is very popular especially for desserts and biscuits.

Its strong and spicy smell and slightly spicy taste make it suitable for reviving first courses and roasts but also for flavoring cakes and creams.

Let's look at some recipes, but also some non-food uses of cardamom.

Cardamom seed infusion

It helps a lot the stomach work this simple infusion, to digest but also to relieve pain and discomfort .

Procedure : use a teaspoon of cardamom seeds, previously crushed, for a cup of boiling water, leave to infuse 4 or 5 minutes, take half an hour after meals.

This infusion is also useful for halitosis, just rinse in the evening and morning after brushing your teeth. Or, to have even better effects, you have to chew the whole berry, with the seeds still inside.

Cardamom herbal tea for the intestine

Cardamom seeds: the recipe for Indian Chai

Cardamom in chai is a must, to remind you of India even on a foggy winter day.

Ingredients for two people:

> a couple of cups of water,

> a cup of semi-skimmed milk,

> 5/7 green cardamom pods,

> a teaspoon of fresh grated ginger root,

> a cinnamon stick,

> 3 cloves,

> 3 grains of black pepper,

> 2 tablespoons of black leaf tea,

> a couple of tablespoons of whole cane sugar (or honey or other natural sweetener).

Procedure : pound the cardamom pods in a mortar or on a cutting board to let out the seeds you will put, together with all the other ingredients, except milk and sugar, in a saucepan; cook over medium heat, bringing to a boil.

Lower and simmer for about 10 minutes; add only sugar and milk at the end, leaving about three minutes on the heat. Serve hot in classic glasses.

Cardamom is also used to flavor traditional Arabic qahwa coffee.

Rice flavored with cardamom and cinnamon seeds

Ingredients for 4 people:

> 6 punches of basmati rice,

> coarse salt,

> 8/10 cardamom pods,

> a cinnamon stick,

> fresh coriander,

> roasted cashews,

> extra virgin olive oil,

> lime.

Procedure : boil the water in a large pot with a little coarse salt, add the cinnamon, cardamom seeds, and rice; let cook for the indicated time, about 10/12 minutes.

Drain everything and serve this fragrant rice with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled with crushed cashew nuts, chopped coriander and a splash of lime. Ideal to accompany vegetable sauces or other dishes.

It should be noted that in the East cardamom is considered an aphrodisiac spice, this property is even praised in the stories of the "thousand and one nights".

Käffebrod, biscuits from the north with cardamom seeds

Excellent and light, ideal to accompany coffee, here in the version with oil.

Ingredients for about twenty cookies:

> 200 grams of flour 0,

> a pound of whole cane sugar,

> a couple of tablespoons of sunflower oil (the original recipe would provide a pound of softened butter),

> a spoonful of coffee,

> an egg,

> a pinch of yeast,

> 5 cardamom pods with powdered seeds.

Procedure : quickly work all the above ingredients together in a bowl, forming a ball. Leave it to rest in the refrigerator for about twenty minutes. Take it and form two cylinders of about 3 cm in diameter; pass the cylinders in brown sugar, leave them to rest another half hour in the fridge.

Take them back and cut washers about a centimeter thick that you will be laying on the baking paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 ° C for about 10 minutes.

Other uses of cardamom seeds

Even today, cardamom is also used externally, both in healthy and cosmetic fields; already Greeks and Romans made them essences and perfumes .

Cardamom is great for making fume or fumigations : 3 drops of essential oil are used in a basin of boiling water to free the airways and relieve coughing. You can boil the same seeds for about 5 minutes before breathing in the steam.

Its black seeds can also be used to make an antioxidant, purifying, astringent and antibacterial scrub for the skin of the face and body, just use equal parts cinnamon, cloves, ginger and cardamom seeds ground together. then knead with aloe vera gel and massage gently into the areas that need it most. It also helps fight psoriasis and acne .

NB. Green cardamom is obtained from Elettaria cardamomum, a tropical plant from the Zingiberaceae family, the same as ginger, very common in India and Malaysia. This spice has a very intense taste and is quite expensive . It is called "green cardamom" because there is also a black variety, much more common and bitter than the green one, and a Chinese variety known as Siam cardamom .