Cardamom

Their subtle sweetness and affinity for spices make carrots a natural choice for other baked goods besides the more familiar cakes and muffins. Here, they provide an unexpected flavor for individual tarts with another surprise: pastry crusts coated in crushed gingersnaps.

Apricot halves are poached with lemon peel, cracked cardamom pods, sliced fresh ginger, and vanilla-bean seeds to make a luscious filling for little crosshatched hand pies. Plums or peaches can be used in place of apricots; you may need to cut out larger pastry rounds depending on the size of the fruit. Be sure to keep the fruit submerged in poaching liquid or it will turn brown. This recipe is a specialty of Joey Gallagher, whose daughter, photographer Dana Gallagher, is a frequent contributor to Martha Stewart Living.

Buttery madeleine batter is sweetened with honey and spiced with ground cardamom. Once baked, the mini cakes are glazed with a simple citrus icing.

Cardamom-flavored cookies are a traditional specialty of the Scandinavian countries. This crisp cracker-like variety is made more crunchy with a topping of finely chopped pistachios and shredded coconut.

Our good friends Dyan Solomon and Éric Girard own Olive + Gourmando, a perfect luncheonette on Saint Paul West in Montreal’s Old Port. Their little shop is what we expect the coffee shop in the afterlife to be like: they’re detail fanatics and it’s no contest the best place for lunch in the city. When they first opened, they were bakers, and the place was a bakery with a few seats. They still make bread, but mostly to use in delicious sandwiches. The front counter is displayed with brioches, croissants, brownies, and fruit pastries, and they’re all killer. We thought they were insane when they decided to open in Old Port a decade ago. It was a barren ghost town of bombed-out buildings, seedy bars, and grow-ops. There were no people, much less hotels and tourist shops selling maple-sugar products and “raccoon” Daniel Boone hats actually made from Chinese skunks. Like us, Éric and Dyan don’t take anything too seriously (Dyan can tell you many stories of Fred’s practical jokes when they used to work together: her showing up at 6:00 A.M. to a fake “dead man” at the bottom of the stairs; Fred putting a scraped lamb shank in his shirt, saying he may have hurt his hand. . . .) They’re Montreal classics and were kind enough to hand over one of their most beloved recipes.

This fabulous pudding has all the flavors of kheer, the Indian rice dessert, but is richer and creamier thanks to the added egg yolks. Many rice pudding recipes are made entirely on the stove top, which requires lots of vigilant stirring (and watching). My version starts on the stove top but is finished in the oven, which leaves your hands free for other things. Chopped toasted pistachios make a nice garnish for this comforting dessert.

While Lassi Namkeen (preceding recipe) is an acquired taste for most people, this is instantly appealing. Be sure to try the fruit variation.

This is a gentler version of the preceding Indian Masala Chai, perhaps better suited to the palates of Western Europe. Yet it remains exotic and delicious, as does cardamom-spiced coffee (still consumed in the Middle East). Wonderful iced.

This groglike drink has been popular in Russia for centuries. It’s usually prepared without alcohol, but it’s pretty good with it, too—just add 1/2 to 3/4 cup vodka or brandy during the last couple of minutes of simmering. It’s not often served cold in Russia, but I like it that way, as a kind of spicy, odd relation of Masala Chai (page 668).

Think of this as osso buco, Russian style; the technique is almost identical to that in the following, better-known classic, but the result is sweeter and more fragrant. Serve with pilaf or buttered noodles. If you are lucky enough to find fresh sour cherries, by all means use them; pit about a pound and add them to the pan as you would bottled sour cherries, along with about 1/4 cup sugar and a bit more stock. Other cuts of meat you can use here: as in classic osso buco, you will lose something by substituting chunks of boneless veal for the shank, but you will gain time, and the results will still be quite good.

I thought Lent was a time of self-denial, but in Sweden it’s when these absolutely delicious buns appear, filled with almond paste and whipped cream. They certainly could be served as dessert, but in Sweden people eat them as a midmorning or midafternoon snack.

This curry still carries a bit of heat but is mild and fragrant. If I were looking for an all-purpose curry powder, this would be it.

This is a sweet, mild, but very complex curry powder; you can add a bit of cayenne if you want some heat. You can chip pieces off a whole nutmeg with the blunt edge of a heavy knife or crack the whole thing by pressing on it with a heavy skillet.

Generally speaking—but not always—garam masala is milder than curry, containing little or no pepper or chile. Again, it’s a matter of taste. This garam masala has a load of cardamom in it, because that’s the kind I favor. It’s delicious with fish.

A recipe from my friend Sumana Chatterjee, whose family lives in Calcutta. The ingredient list, obviously, could not be shorter, but don’t be deceived: This is a labor-intensive dish, best made on a cool day (we made it on a hot one and lost about five pounds each) when you are going to be in the kitchen for a long time. Having said that, it is wonderful stuff, creamy and delicious, representative of the scores of different milk desserts made throughout India.

This is what I think of as real coffee cake—not extraordinarily sweet and for some people not even a dessert. If you want it more cakelike, double the sugar in the dough and consider adding a couple more tablespoons of butter. But this is wonderful with a cup of coffee in the afternoon or toasted, with a little butter, in the morning. With the food processor, this dough becomes quite quick to make; just keep the processing to a minimum. You want to avoid building up the gluten in the flour so it doesn’t become tough. If you don’t feel like braiding the dough (it really is fun, though, and takes only a few extra minutes), by all means bake this in a loaf pan.

A delicious buttery northern European specialty whose name derives from its rough texture. For the best possible flavor, toast and grind fresh spices. If you have whole cardamom, remove the seeds from the pods by crushing the pods lightly with the side of a knife (discard the hulls). Then combine them with a bit of cinnamon stick and a small piece of nutmeg in a small dry skillet and toast over medium heat, shaking the pan frequently until the mixture is aromatic. Grind well, then combine with the ginger.

Cardamom is used everywhere from India to Scandinavia, and I love what the fragrant spice does for these classic French shortbread cookies. Though not traditional, the addition of cornstarch guarantees the delicate, crumbly texture for which the cookies are named (sablé translates as “sand”). Because sablés need time to chill before being baked, they make wonderful icebox cookies and are easy to keep in the fridge or the freezer and you can slice and bake as needed. They make an easy but distinctive finish to a meal, and are a nice accessory for a lonely scoop of ice cream or sorbet. If you like, instead of forming the dough into logs, roll out the dough after chilling and cut out rounds, then baked as directed. Cardamom loses its fragrance quickly, so make sure your ground cardamom is fresh.

I know I’m not alone when I say that snickerdoodles were my favorite cookie as a kid. Hell, they’re pretty much my favorite cookie as an adult. My mother’s 1970s recipe used shortening, but I prefer to make them with all butter, to deepen their flavor with brown sugar, and to scent them heavily with ethereal cardamom. This recipe calls for them to cool on a wire rack, but do yourself a favor and eat at least a few while they’re still warm, and be prepared to go weak-kneed. Snickerdoodles will keep at room temperature, in an airtight container, for about 3 days.