Cardamom is one of my favourites in the spice rack.
What do you taste when you put cardamom in your mouth? You really have to bite into raw cardamom to get a sense of the flavours within. Here’s how you do it. Take a piece of fresh Cardamom – a green one – with peel. Remove the peel. The black pods inside are the bombshells of flavour. Put a couple of them in your mouth. Close your eyes, and bite into them. What do you taste ?
Did it taste like you bit into a piece of camphor? Did you smell eucalyptus? How about a citrus aftertaste and a floral aroma? That’s Cardamom and its complex flavours for you. Based on where your cardamoms come from, the intensity of the camphor or the citrus flavours will vary. The cardamom belongs to the ginger family, and that gives it the floral quality. The complex flavours of cardamom easily cut through fatty foods and elevate them to a higher plane. Cardamom pairs very well with milk, curd, cream, butter, and white chocolate.
Here’s how you use and store cardamom.
Cardamom loses its freshness fast, so it is best to buy in smaller quantities. (Say 50 gms.)Dry roast the cardamom in a pan for just under a minute, grind it to a smooth powder in a mixer, and store it in an airtight container. You can powder with the outer shell as well, which adds to the thickness of the food it is added to.
Why are we talking about cardamom in a recipe for Kodo millet porridge? Because that is the flavour which shines and remains after the last sip of the dish.Kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum ) is called Arikelu in the Telugu language, Varagu in Tamil, Varak in Malayalam, Arka in Kannada, and Kodra in Hindi. It is known for its gluten free, high fiber content, rich in vitamins and minerals making it the right substitute for rice or wheat for weight loss, diabetic people. It is also a highly nutritious food for the anemic.
Kodo Millet Cooling drink
A soothing shake for a hot summer.
Ingredients
½ cup Koda Millet
2 cups water
¾ cup jaggery
1 cup water
1 cup milk
1 tsp Cardamom
½ tsp clove
Directions
- Wash and clean the Koda millet.
- Pressure cook the millet with 2 cups of water for 20 minutes.
- Allow it to cool.
- Grind the cooked millet in a mixer with 1 cup of milk to a smooth consistency.
- Add jaggery to the mixture and beat it to a creamy texture making it easy to dissolve uniformly.
- Add the cardamom and the clove powder.
- Add extra water to get the drink to a thin drinking consistency.
- Refrigerate for 4 hours.
- Serve cold.
Naturally Hema 