A rice dish in which meat or vegetables and spices are cooked together. This is spelled in a number of different ways, including pilao, pillao, pulao, pullao pilau pillau pulau pullau.
Ganthoda. This is a powder made from the rhizome of the Indian valerian plant. It is also often mixed with vinegar and added as a spice in the cooking of both India and China. It can also be added to boiling water to make a tea which may also be flavoured with slices of citrus fruits.Ganthoda is also typically used in powder form and mixed with an equal amount of ginger powder, jaggery and water to alleviate gastric troubles and joint pains.
Long pepper. They are tiny berries which cleave to a single rod which looks similar to a dried catkin and provide a hot, sweet spice.
Pistachio nut. The fruits of a small tree which originated in Central Asia, probably eastern Syria, but which is now widely cultivated. Just before harvest pistachios are enclosed in a green and magenta fleshy cover. These are the very best, if you can get them. However, fresh pistachios are rarely seen, mainly because they have a short shelf-life. They are usually hulled and dried, after which they are either roasted or roasted and salted. For cooking use the ones which are not already salted. They are sold in their creamy beige shells, which split as they ripen. The shells should be removed and the purple papery skins rubbed off revealing the bright green kernels within, the greener the better. They are related to both the cashew and the mango.
Pistachio nut. The fruits of a small tree which originated in Central Asia, probably eastern Syria, but which is now widely cultivated. Just before harvest pistachios are enclosed in a green and magenta fleshy cover. These are the very best, if you can get them. However, fresh pistachios are rarely seen, mainly because they have a short shelf-life. They are usually hulled and dried, after which they are either roasted or roasted and salted. For cooking use the ones which are not already salted. They are sold in their creamy beige shells, which split as they ripen. The shells should be removed and the purple papery skins rubbed off revealing the bright green kernels within, the greener the better. They are related to both the cashew and the mango.
