Cardamom Powder

• Cardamom powder is widely used in Indian sweet dishes, ice creams, milk specialities, and hot masala milk.
• It adds flavour and aroma to many rice dishes, vegetables and other richly-flavoured dishes.
• It is used as a traditional flavouring in coffee and tea.

HEALTH BENEFITS

• It stimulates the digestive system and reduces gas.
• Its expectorant action improves circulation to the lungs and thus considered good for asthma and bronchitis.
• Can counteract excess acidity in the stomach.
• Stimulates appetite and cures halitosis (bad breath).
• An infusion made by boiling a couple of pounded cardamoms in a cup of water along with few mint leaves, relieves you from hiccups.

To make cardamom powder, first crack the pods and remove the seeds. Then grind them finely or coarsely. The skins are either discarded or mixed into tea leaves, to give a faint fragrance to the tea. When making slightly larger quantities of crushed cardamom in a spice grinder or mixer, some people like to crush it with the pods in order to ensure a better grind and to prevent the powder from caking.