Advieh

Advieh is a Persian aromatic finishing spice and is usually a blend of five ingredients. Which five depends on the dish you are making. For a good discussion on this visit Persian Cuisine from Javane’s Kitchen.

Advieh

Note: Finishing spices are blends that you add at the end of cooking to preserve the aromatic volatiles that give a dish its fragrance.

The usual blend for advieh is cardamom seeds, cinnamon, cumin, rose petals and either nutmeg or coriander seeds. Many recipes call for equal amounts of each, but many others use only a half measure of cumin. I am making a rice dish, so I plan to use nutmeg and less cumin. For a meat dish I would probably use coriander and a full measure of cumin.

Note: I have had previous discussions on whether or not to use the whole cardamom pod or just the seeds in a spice blend. The Persian writers on the Net seem definite on using just the seeds. Also, in the last blend I made using the whole pods I could never quite get the pods to break down completely. In the end, I still had chewy little pieces of the pod left in the mix.

Advieh

Ingredients

1 tsp. cardamom
1 tsp. cinnamon
1½ tsp. cumin
tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. rose petals

Directions

1. Use ground spices or put whole spices in a spice grinder and process to a power.