Ever struggled with grinding small quantities of cardamom? Lots of Indian sweets require this aromatic spice, so knowing how to do this quickly and painlessly is a handy skill to possess!
So an Indian dessert recipe calls for 5 pods of cardamom to be ground to a fine powder? Too small an amount to be done in a food processor or coffee grinder. No problem! First remove the seeds from the shells/ skins.
Discard the shells/ skins. Put the seeds on a clean, dry, flat surface - a chopping board for example. Now add a teaspoon of granulated sugar. Use a rolling pin to grind the lot into a fine powder. The granulated sugar creates the friction that the cardamom seeds would not have had on their own, making for quick work! Keep grinding till you get the powder as fine as you require.