Almond Poppy Seed Drink

Almond Poppy Seed drink

Personally, I do not attach much importance to new year. I fell time is a continuum and for our convenience we divided it into the way we follow today. It seems a bit philosophical, but that’s how I feel about it. Having said that, I am aware that many attach more importance to new year, especially the first day so I thought I will post a recipe on this day. I wanted to post a recipe I learned from my grandmother as I thought it would be a nice way to preserve it while we move forward in time. I did make some modifications to the recipe to make it suitable for us. This is the drink my grandmother would make when we have mouth ulcers. It is one of those recipes that serves as medicines for an otherwise annoying problem. It is quite tasty so you can have it once a week even if you do not have mouth ulcer. Poppy seeds are obtained from the opium plant but do not have the bad effects of the drug itself. On the other hand, it is said to help in nervous disorders and acts as pain killer. It also has essential fatty acids and I am guessing it is for these reasons that it gets used in this recipe. Here is the recipe...

10-12 almonds, soaked and skinned

1 tablespoon poppy seeds, soaked in hot water for about an hour

1 generous pinch of saffron

2 glasses of milk

Sugar to taste

Grind together the almonds, saffron and poppy seeds and once finely ground, add the milk. You could steep the saffron in some hot water/milk to extract the flavour better

Add the milk and required sugar.

Ginger Drink (Inji Surasam)

Ginger Drink (Inji Surasam)

I am trying to post recipes appropriate for the holiday season but the recent attack of cold in my family was a reminder that it is also the cold season. While it is great to munch on biscuits and nack on cakes and cookies, the sugars in them will weaken our immune system. Even if you are on a reasonable diet, you may be down with the cold every now and then. Considering I try to post as many healthy recipes as possible, I thought I should post a wonderful drink that does not just taste great but is super good for cold. It helps alleviate cold symptoms including body pain. To me, it is the best hot, sour and sweet soup. Although honey is also good for the throat, I prefer to use sugar in this case as honey when heated becomes toxic. It is my grandmother’s recipe, so yet again, a traditional gem preserved. I would strongly recommend people who suffer from sinusitis to try this about once in a week or when down with the infection. It will seem like a lot of ginger but you need that heat for it to work. I will try to post more recipes suitable for this season, until then here is a superb drink.

6 inch piece of ginger (about 5-7 cm wide) cut into smaller chunks and coarsely crushed

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

Juice of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons sugar

Pinches of salt

Bring to boil the ginger and cumin seeds in about two glasses of water. Allow it to boil for ten to fifteen minutes so the juices from ginger and cumin seep into the water. It will be quite aromatic at this stage

Take off the flame, add the sugar, salt and lemon juice, mix and drink hot. I normally run it through a sieve before drinking

Pumpkin Pachadi (Pumpkin curry)

Pumpkin Pachadi (Pumpkin curry)

When I was a child, I was not at all a fan of pumpkin and preferred ash gourd. Over time, I relaise my taste has changed and now I quite like pumpkin. It is a shame that I do not get it all through the year. I barely see it in the supermarkets here and if lucky, I get my hands around it or my brother and his wife buy it for me from Indian shop. I usually buy a full pumpkin, cut it and freeze. The lovely colour of the pumpkin flesh simply means it is very good for us. It contains beta carotene which has anti inflammatory properties and also contains alpha carotenes which can slow ageing and even prevent tumor growth. It has vitamin E which promotes healthy skin and could also prevent some cancers. It is also rich in fibre. Having said all the good stuff about this lovely fruit, it is a shame that it is normally seen only during Halloween, that too for carving. Anyway, this particular dish is a traditional dish and ayurveda based. You can pair this with any other dish that may be slightly bitter so the sweetness complements. Here is the recipe...

1 teapsoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon urd dal

Asafoetida

Turmeric powder

2 cups pumpkin, cubed

½ teaspoon tamarind paste

½ teaspoon chilly powder (optional)

1 tablespoon crushed jaggery

2-3 dry red chillies

Salt to taste

One sprig curry leaves

Cooking oil

Heat little oil and add mustard seeds, urd dal, asafoetida, turmeric powder and dry red chillies. Allow the seeds to crackle

Add the pumpkin and sauté for couple of minutes

Add little water and tamarind paste and cook until pumpkin is done

Add the chilly powder, salt, jaggery, curry leaves and simmer until raw smell goes

Serve

Aubergine in Dal

Aubergine in Dal

Regular readers of my blog may remember that I had bought a couple of ayurvedic cook books. Oh, don’t worry that does not mean I will use ingredients you have not heard of or cannot find in regular shops. I was looking for everyday recipes which have the ingredients combined based on ayurvedic guidelines. One of the books I bought certainly lives upto that requirement. I was flipping through its pages after a long time and came across this aubergine in dal recipe. I am not a fan of regular dal simply because it is too simple and can be plain, especially when made for my husband as he does not like hot food. However, this dal recipe sounded interesting because it also had aubergine, a good veggie included thereby boosting our vegetable intake and the fact that we char it and use it imparts so much flavour to the dish. Although i have not used any chilly powder but just had lot more red chillies than suggested in the recipe, the flavours came through very well and was actually better than hot food. This certainly is a keeper especially considering I get Spanish aubergines more readily than baby eggplants. I used ginger instead of garlic as some folks at home do not take garlic. Here is the recipe, it will serve 2-3. The book recommends that we cook in ghee, I used a little bit oil along with ghee. The tempering with cumin and red chilly was my addition, you could skip it if you want.

1 large aubergine, charred and skin peeled

1/3 cup moong dal, well cooked

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tomato, chopped

1 ½ teaspoon  coriander powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

3-5 dry red chillies

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon ginger

Handful of coriander leaves, chopped

Ghee/oil

Heat some ghee/oil and add dry red chillies, onion and ginger. Cook until soft

Mix the spice powders in some water and add this to the onion. Add tomatoes and cook until tomatoes are mushy

Add the aubergine. I charred it, peeled and cut it into chunks, little water, salt and cook for couple of minutes

Add cooked mung dal, salt and simmer

Heat little ghee in a small pan and add cumin seeds and dry red chillies and add to this dal mixture. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve

Sundakkai Vathal Rice (Dried Turkey Berry Rice)

Sundakkai Vathal Rice

Health is wealth and I would rather be the wealthiest person and ofcourse keep my friends and family wealthy. Also, I rather do it by eating healthy than popping pills. These turkey berries are one of those gems found naturally and can help us a great deal. I have written more about these berries in this post. Unlike many other berries, this berry is not sweet but bitter but even better for us. Having this kind of rice even once a week should do us good. My mom’s tip to make the sundakkai more palatable (make it less bitter) is to fry it in generous portion of oil instead of a spoon of oil. I made pumpkin pachadi which is hot and sweet so that complemented the bitterness in the berries. Trust me, the whole meal was just wonderful. Even if you do not normally have Indian meals, you should try this for the simple reason that it is super healthy. Dried turkey berries are available in most Indian shops.

2 tablespoon sundakkai vathal

3-4 garlic cloves

4-5 sambar onion (pearl onion)

One sprig curry leaves

2-3 dry red chillies

Turmeric powder

Salt to taste

Gingelly oil

1-2 tablespoon powdered sundakai vathal

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon urd dal

Heat some gingelly oil and add the mustard seeds, urd dal, dry red chillies and allow the seeds to crackle

Add onion, garlic, and curry leaves and cook until raw smell goes

Add turmeric powder and sundakkai and fry until it begins to change colour

Add the crushed/powdered sundakai and fry for couple of minutes

Add cooked rice, salt and mix well, serve hot

Sundakai Paruppu Kadaisal (Turkey Berry Dal)

Sundakai Paruppu Kadaisal


One of the many gems used in Indian cuisine is sundakai a.k.a turkey berry. Many would have seen it in dried form in many Indian grocery shops. I had only seen it once in the fresh form before I moved out of India. After that, I saw it recently in an Indian food shop here and was delighted so just grabbed a small quantity. These berries are quite commonly used in ayurvedic treatments I am told. It has medicinal properties that make it great to treat phlegm, mucus and cough. It is capable of helping the body get rid of bacterial infestation of the stomach making it very good for the digestive system. It is said to help cure night blindness by strengthening the nerves. Its bitter taste helps kill worms in the gut. While there are a good few recipes one can dish out with dried berries, I noticed there were far fewer recipes using fresh berries. Here is one for you...

1 cup green turkey berries
½ cup toor dal
½ teaspoon tamarind extract
10 pearl onions
1 tomato
Turmeric powder
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
3-4 dry red chillies
Asafoetida
Cooking oil
Curry leaves

Wash and smash the turkey berries so their seeds come out. Smear turmeric powder so they do not become dark

Bring together, chopped tomato, about 5 pearl onions (smashed lightly), toor dal, couple of dry red chillies, add required water and pressure cook well so they can be mashed

Mash this mixture

In the meantime, heat little oil and add mustard seeds. Once it crackles, add asafoetida, dry red chillies,pearl onions and sauté briefly

Add tamarind extract, little water and required salt (enough for the turkey berries and dal mixture). You could add little chilly powder at this stage if desired

Add this to the mashed dal, mix well and serve!

Iron Rich Yogurt Drink

Iron Rich Yogurt Drink


Couple of years back, around the same time I was wondering how I could share my thoughts on food, healthy eating, some indulgence, my recipes, traditional recipes so they do not get lost etc. Then with help from my husband, I started this blog and it has been absolutely wonderful having a platform to write and also have readers read and feedback. I was always keen on eating sensibly and am a firm believer that good food can be quite healing in both preventing and curing ways. The more I realised that I could influence my state of health, and ofcourse that of the family, via food that we intake, the more interested I became in what exactly goes into the food. This is one of the reasons I wanted to learn more about ayurvedic science behind food and understand how I could make advantage of the medicinal properties of several wonderful ingredients yet create yummy dishes that taste nothing like a horrible cough syrup. As a first step I bought couple of books and this recipe is from one of them, The Ayurvedic Cooking by Amadea Morningstar and Urmila Desai. This does not involve any cooking and is pretty simple and is an excellent breakfast drink that could keep you going for a good while. Several people suffer from iron deficiency and resort to supplements in the form of tablets. One of the painful side effects of iron supplement is constipation. On the contrary, this drink is rich in iron but also mildly laxative due to its fibre content. It does not have to be sweetened as the natural sugars in its ingredients are adequate but that is a personal choice. By no means will this taste like medicine because it is indeed quite a tasty drink. I do not believe in New year resolutions as there is no bad time to do good things so why wait till new year. However, I thought several people believe in it and for those who would like to give 2012 a healthy start, here is my little help. Wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year!

¼ cup raisins
4 dried figs/peaches/apricots
1 cup water
½ cup yogurt

Soak the raisins and figs/apricot/peaches in water overnight

Blend all ingredients together to make a smooth drink

Serves 1-2