Cardamoms Before & After.

Our friend, The Sultan of Somerville is back from his travels and his wonderful black cat, Japhy, has resumed his position as the Sultan's Grand Vizier.  The Sultan came for dinner this evening and I prepared a dish from my bible for Indian food, Julie Sahni's "Classic Indian Cuisine", which I have owned since 1986.  The dish is chicken in a sauce made of pulverised onions with yoghurt seasoned with a sweet spice combination favored by the Moghuls, called Mughal Garam Masala.  I had to grind some of my own, fresh, and this involved removing cardamom pods from their husks.  It's labor intensive but quite an enjoyable task.  I keep a stash of pistachio shells handy (from preparing pesto) for when I'm smoking meat outside in the smoker and I had this idea to save the cardamom husks to add to this concoction in the hope that the sweet smell would be imparted to the meat.  We'll see...  In the meantime, the chicken dish never fails to please - we ate like Moghuls!