Cardamom

Khansland Cardamom is hand-selected plump, tightly sealed green cardamom pods of the finest small-pod Bangladeshi and Indian hill varieties, chosen for their dense seed fill, perfectly dried condition, and the intensely sweet, floral, cool-camphor fragrance that identifies properly cured high-quality cardamom. Each pod is hand-sorted to remove any with cracked or pale skins, ensuring you receive only the most aromatic pods.

Cardamom is the most important of all aromatic spices in Bengali cooking — the spice that most immediately evokes the fragrance of a special occasion kitchen. It is the defining spice of biryani, where its sweet floral note weaves through the entire dish; of payesh, where it transforms simmered milk and rice into something celestial; and of the spiced tea and coffee preparations central to Bangladeshi hospitality culture.

In biryani and pilaf, the whole pod is added to hot ghee at the start of cooking, allowing the heat to bloom the essential oils through the paper skin into the oil. For grinding, the pods are first lightly dry-roasted, then the seeds are extracted and ground. The amount of each spice in garam masala is traditionally judged by weight of seeds rather than pods.