Heat heavy 3 1/2 quart / 3 1/2 L sauce pan and add oil. When oil is very hot, add the cardamom pods and the cumin. Fry the spices until the cumin seeds turn almost black, but not to the burnt stage. This could take 3-5 minutes. Add the rice and stir carefully to coat the rice with oil. Saute the rice for a few minutes, then add the fava beans, the dill and the salt. Add the stock, bring to a boil, turn the heat down to low, cover the pan tightly and cook the rice for 25-30 minutes. Remove the cover, gently fluff the rice with a fork, cover the pot with a clean towel, replace the lid and let the rice sit for about 10 minutes.

Serve immediately. Serves 4-6.

Recipe courtesy of Nicole Novak.

"I came up with a new basmati rice recipe that was SO GOOD, adapted from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe in the new 'Julia Cooks with Master Chefs' book."

FAVA BEANS: Available in several forms. Fresh, hidden inside large green pods. Open the pods and extract the beans. The beans thenselves are also clothed in their own "seed coats" or skins, which are hard and tasteless. Unless the beans are very young and tender, these skins need to be removed.

Here is the best way to cook them: Boil the beans for about 10 minutes in lightly salted water. They should be quite tender inside their coats. Now they are ready to be peeled. Drain and let them cool under running water first. Two pounds of pods yield about 2 to 2 and half cups of beans. Discard the peel. They taste a bit like fresh lima beans.

Then there are the dried fava beans which are available year round at Chinese, Greek and Middle Eastern stores. They come without their pods, of course but you can get them with or without their skins. They taste somewhat like chestnuts after they have been cooked. I boil them for 2 minutes and then let them sitin hot water for 1 hour. Then boil them for for another 30 45 minutes or until they are just tender. The beans can be put in salads or or pureed and put into scrambled eggs.