I have a cookery book and a lot of the recipes are spicy ones, not all Indian, but a mixture of cuisines from around the world. For all the recipes that have green cardamoms in them it tells me to crush the pods, discard the seeds, and just use the husk(s). For instance, I have one recipe that says to use 8 green cardamom pods in this way, could I use two pods instead of eight but just crush them slightly and leave the seeds inside?

I am slightly puzzled. I would use the seeds and discard the husks under normal circumstances. The oils and flavour are contained mostly in the seeds. I would use the whole pods, crushed, as you suggest.

Mamta

Baffled too at the instructions to ditch the seeds are just use the husks - It seems totally the wrong way round! As Mamta says it is the seeds that contain the aroma, flavour and oils.

Try cutting a cardamom pod in half and scrape out the seeds. First chew on the husk: to me its like chewing on bits of cardboard with a musky hint of cardamom. Then try chewing the seeds - you get an explosion of a much cleaner & pungent flavour.

I perhaps naively thought the seeds were sold in the pod to conserve the flavour of the seeds (and push up the weight?) The seeds by themselves are the third most expensive spice by weight after (though obviously not in the same league as) saffron and then vanilla.

Just to be clear on things, the whole green cardomom shell is used, unbroken, to flavor various dishes like rice during cooking, yes?

The aroma from these things can be smelled through the plastic bags they are housed in on the shelf. The smell of the black cardomom strikes me as more pungent and sharper.

I have wondered when to use the whole shell and when to use the black seeds, crushed. (I occassionally use the crushed black seeds to flavor oatmeal. I have had kheer whose flavor has been enhanced with the whole cardomom, sometimes just the black cardomom. Shrikhand also uses cardomom - I don't know if the whole green cardomom is used to flavor this dessert, or if the black cardomom seeds.)

Cardomom powder can be used to enhance the flavor of green beans, if used in a delicate way.

A restuarant that I used to go to used to sprinkle its kheer with a fine green powder that had a cardomom flavor. It had a sweeter and more mild flavor that what I produce when I grind the black cardomom seeds even in my mortar container.

If I want a final recipe that is bit free I just use the little round black insides of the cardamon and throw the seeds..... if I'm using the grinder the lots goes in... never had a problem...

really can't think of a reason why you would only use the husks unless it was for colour of the dish ?

Steve