Sweet Potato Crusted Salmon

Ingredients:

'm going a little healthier with this sweet potato crusted salmon over a watercress and goat cheese salad and flash fried sweet potato matchsticks. The salmon is filleted and seasoned with cardamom, ground clove and nutmeg, then topped with paper thin slices of sweet potato, and sauteed in olive oil. The salad has peppery watercress greens, crumbled goat cheese, shaved radishes and pomegranate seeds. A vinaigrette is made with pomegranate juice, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard and olive oil.

California Prune & Cardamom Tart

Cardamom & Blood Pressure

Cardamom is a commonly used spice, especially in Middle Eastern and Indian cooking. It is used in chai tea, curries, rice dishes and herbal teas. However, it may also be beneficial to your health. One of the possible benefits of cardamom is lowering your blood pressure, although the research into this area is still preliminary.

High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure, or hypertension, occurs when your heart has to work harder to pump the blood through your body. If your blood pressure is 140/90 or higher, you have high blood pressure. Hypertension can lead to other serious health conditions if it isn't treated, including heart disease, stroke, heart attack and kidney failure.

Cardamom and Blood Pressure

Consuming 1.5 g of cardamom two times per day for 12 weeks lowered the blood pressure of people with stage one hypertension who participated in a study published in the "Indian Journal of Biochemistry and Biophysics" in December 2009. Although this study was small, using only 20 people, and was not placebo-controlled, it shows that cardamom may be beneficial for people with high blood pressure. Further double-blind, placebo-controlled studies are needed to confirm this effect.

Possible Mechanism

Cardamom appears to behave in the body in a similar way to a type of blood pressure medication called calcium channel blockers, according to another study published in the "Journal of Ethnopharmacology" in February 2008, which used animals to try to determine the mechanism through which cardamom lowers blood pressure.

Considerations

Speak with your doctor before consuming large amounts of cardamom to make sure this would be safe for you. Do not self-treat high blood pressure with cardamom, or use cardamom instead of the treatment for high blood pressure prescribed by your doctor. The research into the benefits of consuming cardamom for high blood pressure is still preliminary.

References

• "The Jerusalem Post"; Healthy Eating: Spice Up Your Life; Kathryn Rubin; June 2011
• Family Doctor; High Blood Pressure: Things You Can Do to Help Lower Yours; November 2010
• "Journal of Ethnopharmacology"; Gut Modulatory, Blood Pressure Lowering, Diuretic and Sedative Activities of Cardamom; A.H. Gilani, et al.; February 2008
• "Indian Journal of Biochemistry and Biophysics"; Blood Pressure Lowering, Fibrinolysis Enhancing and Antioxidant Acitivities of Cardamom (Elettaria Cardamomum); S.K. Verma, et al.; December 2009

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/485783-cardamom-blood-pressure/#ixzz1mZ7Kw0i1

How To Make Pho Ga

Ingredients (serves 6):

- Rice Noodles
-Broth:
- 12 cups of water
- 1 whole organic chicken
- 2 medium sized white onions
- 1 ginger root
- 1/8 cup of cardamom pods
- 1 tablespoon of cloves
- 1/8 cup of star anise
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ fish sauce (or to taste)
-Toppings:
- Bean sprouts
- 1 pickled red onion
- 1 batch of cilantros
- 1 patch of scallions
- Hoisin sauce
- Rooster chili sauce
- Ground black pepper

Kheema Matar

Ingredients:
300g of minced beef/ keema
1 small tomato chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1/2 tsp red chill powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp haldi/ turmeric
Garam Masala
2 cardamom pods
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp zeera
1 heaped tsp ginger garlic paste
1/2 cup of peas- optional
Garnishing
Green Chilli
Coriander

Risotto Kedgeree Style.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 medium onions, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 fresh, hot green chili pepper, minced
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (I used a quarter of this because my cayenne is extremely hot)
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 teaspoons cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 tablespoon amchoor powder (see note)
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 cups tomatoes, chopped small or 1 15-ounce can of whole tomatoes with their juices, chopped small
2/3 cup water
4 cups cooked chickpeas or 2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 lemon (juiced) (see note; I used a whole lemon to swap for the amchoor powder)

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add onion, garlic, ginger and pepper and sauté over medium heat until browned, about 5 minutes. Turn heat down to medium-low and add the coriander, cumin, cayenne, turmeric, cumin seeds, amchoor (if using it), paprika and garam masala. Cook onion mixture with spiced for a minute or two, then add the tomatoes and any accumulated juices, scraping up any bits that have stuck to the pan. Add the water and chickpeas. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes, then stir in salt and lemon juice.

Eat up or put a lid on it and reheat it when needed. Curries such as this reheat very well, later or or in the days that follow, should it last that long.

5 Reasons To Love Cardamom

Anna Brones

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anna-brones/cardamom_b_1261090.html

High end ramen, breakfast for dinner, sparkling water: We spend a lot of time discovering and discussing food trends on Foodie Underground. It's a dichotomous pursuit. There are the evenings spent complaining to friends about how fed up with the foodie world I am (bone luging, really? yet another cupcake store, must we?). Naturally, in the next sentence, I'm going on about my sea salt and olive oil polenta cake in the oven.

"Sea salt, Anna, really?"

"But sea salt is really good in cake. I swear."

Pause.

"Want to try this cardamom chocolate cake instead?" Tease all they want, I know they're not going to turn it down.

No matter how much your friends roll their eyes at a foodie's obsession, one can always quell their serving of sass with what one cooks up. Appreciation for good homemade food is universal.

But about those trends. Today: cardamom.

Go take a look in your spice cabinet. What do you see? A half-empty container of powdered ginger that's more yellow mass than powder? Vietnamese cinnamon you haven't used since that botched chai recipe in graduate school's chai-and-soy-I-don't-do-coffee days? Turmeric that you don't dare use because... well, because it's so damn technicolor?

Get rid of them -- all of them -- and make room for cardamom, your new spice of choice.

I have a personal long-standing love affair with cardamom, it being the basis of practically every Swedish baked good ever created -- thank you, Vikings. It has been a longtime staple in my culinary adventures, but lately I've noticed that whenever I see a restaurant that employs one word for its name (or two words connected by an ampersand in Helvetica of course), I can be certain there will be cardamom on the menu. Cardamom is the food world's latest "it spice."

This spice deserves any accolade a food lover gives it. It's versatile, delicious and sexy in everything from desserts to main courses. Yes, it's expensive, coming in after saffron and vanilla, but there's good reason that this India-born spice is the new épice du jour.

Here are five reasons you should (and will) fall in love with cardamom.

1. Cardamom is exotic. It is sexy.

Cardamom has a distinct and complex flavor. Bonus: Anything you put the spice in is automatically going to sound more alluring that the original version.

Just read the following variations out loud:
Orange ice cream. Orange cardamom ice cream.
Roasted potatoes. Cardamom roasted potatoes.
Saffron macaroons. Saffron-cardamom macaroons.

And so forth. Thanks to this spice, you can instantly turn yourself into a creative, culinary genius, which of course will be a hit for your food-related dating endeavors. It's marketing, baby! (Fortunately, the product backs up the hype.)

2. Cardamom goes well with coffee.

"Must be some Scandinavian thing," a friend of mine responded to a comment I had made about never being able to put too much cardamom in my coffee.

I'm not certain putting cardamom in coffee is an actual Scandinavian habit, but my Swedish-born mother has been doing it since before I can remember, and she buys cardamom in bulk quantities to ensure that we never run out. Having the economic sensibilities of every other food-loving twentysomething, I always fill a plastic bag up when I go home to visit my parents to avoid having to purchase it myself.

Add a pinch (or two, or three) to your morning brew and let it work its magic. You'll quickly understand my obsession.

3. Cardamom is both sweet and savory.

The beauty of cardamom is that it goes just as well with pastries as it does in a lamb tagine.

For a quick and easy sweet tasting cardamom recipe, try my favorite Cardamom Cake.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour


• 3 teaspoons ground cardamom


• 1 tablespoon baking powder


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 7 tablespoons butter


• 1 egg


• 1 cup milk

Instructions:

-Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add in butter with your fingers and mix until crumbly consistency.
-Add in egg and milk and mix until a batter consistency.
-Pour into a greased 9.5 inch circular baking pan. If you want to, sprinkle with sliced almonds or orange zest. (The one pictured above uses Swedish pearl sugar, which you can buy at IKEA or import food stores).
-Bake at 400 F for about 30 minutes.

4. You can get creative with cardamom.

I have found that any recipe that requires any element of spice can be adapted to include cardamom. Food52 ran a contest with cardamom inspired recipes, resulting in everything from Bellinis to granola.

If you have yet to go out on a foodie limb, cardamom could just be your gateway spice. Start small. Add a little cardamom to your hot chocolate, for example. Then graduate to more complex creations, like cardamom in a butternut squash soup.

Just remember to go easy; too much cardamom and your recipe will taste more like medicine than food.

5. You can please omnivores, vegans, the gluten-intolerant and your grandmother. 

There's a cardamom recipe for everyone.
The Meat Lover: Cocoa Cardamom Steak Rub
The Vegan: Cardamom Macadamia Nut Pancakes
The Europhile: Fig and Cardamom Spiced Tiramisu
Your Conventional Grandmother: Cardamom-Spiced Meatloaf
The Bacon Lover: Sugared Cardamom Bacon
The Gluten Intolerant: Cardamom and Orange Quinoa Cookies
The Bartender: No. 4 - a cocktail with gin and cardamom
Now get yourself to the grocery store and stock your spice cabinet. You have delicious to do.

More from Foodie Underground: 
When Food Trends go Wrong: Bone Luge
Why Travel Teaches Us to Appreciate Good Food
How to Formulate the Foolproof Foodie Menu

Editor's note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones's weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what's new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.