Bari Elaichi and My Grandmother's Dum Biryani

Everyone in our family has tried to recreate Dadi's biryani. Nobody has succeeded, and I include myself in that failure — for fifteen years.

The difference, I eventually learned, was bari elaichi. Not the green kind everyone reaches for, but two or three whole black cardamom pods, lightly crushed, added to the meat marinade the night before.

Smoky, not sweet

Black cardamom is dried over open flames, which gives it a deep, smoky note that green cardamom simply doesn't have. In a biryani layered with saffron and fried onions, that smokiness cuts through the richness instead of getting lost in it.

Dadi never measured anything, but when I finally asked her to watch me cook, she stopped me right as I reached for a fourth pod.

"Bas. Teen kaafi hai." Enough. Three is plenty. Any more and the smoke takes over the whole pot.

I make it her way now — three pods, no more. It's the closest I've come, and honestly, that's close enough.