Soup stock

Soup stock

Every traditional system of medicine including Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, and Western herbal medicine maintains as a core principle the idea that heat represents the vitality of life. According to 19th century herbalist Samuel Thomson, this “heat is maintained in the stomach by consuming food; and all the body and limbs receive their proportion of nourishment and heat from that source; as the whole room is warmed by the fire which is consumed in the fireplace”. In this way, all the care required to restore digestion utilizes the same knowledge it takes to build and maintain a fire. And if you have ever built a fire, then you know that there is more to it than just holding a match to a log. You know that you need to ‘enkindle’ the fire, using light, easily combustible materials such as paper and thin strips of kindling. Only once you get this little fire going can you throw on progressively larger pieces of wood to build a nice big roaring fire.

In the same manner, the digestive fire is best enkindled by light, easily digestible foods, and for this purpose there is no better food than soup. To make such a soup, we need to have some base ingredients, and these can include anything and everything including vegetable trimmings and peelings, Chinese dried brown mushrooms, seaweed, and/or animal bones. Simply throw all these ingredients into a pot, cover with water, and let simmer for 12-24 hrs. Especially for stocks containing animal fats, make sure to avoid boiling the stock for any length of time as this will cause the fats to peroxidize and produce undesirable off-flavors.

Most frequently I use soups as a medium to build and restore the skeletal system, using ingredients such as chicken or turkey bones, lamb bones, and marrow bones. These bones contain valuable nutrients such as calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, glucosamine and chondroitin that our bodies can use to build and enhance bone health, to prevent and treat osteoporosis and arthritis. To render these constituents bioavailable, add in a little vinegar to create a slightly acid medium that will pull these minerals into the broth. Likewise, to make them more flavorful, you can roast the bones in the oven for 30 minutes. To boost the nutrient profile of these bone soups, I frequently recommend adding in seaweed such as kelp or dulse. Sea vegetables are truly one of nature’s super foods, not only as the single most abundant source of minerals compared to any land-based food, but also to boost metabolism and promote detoxification. In addition, there are any number of medicinal plants that can be added to boost the healing properties of the soup.

Ingredients (non-vegetarian option)
3-5 lbs. of bones
one handful crushed seaweed
vegetable trimmings and peels
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Ingredients (vegetarian option)
one handful crushed seaweed
vegetable trimmings and peels
4-5 Chinese brown (shiitake) mushrooms

Directions
Place ingredients into a large stockpot and fill to the top with water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let cook for 12-24 hours for the bone broth, between 4-6 hours for the vegetable broth. When done, strain and then store in the refrigerator.

When the stock made with animal bones is cool, the fat will rise to the top and should be skimmed off, especially when using fatty bones such as marrow bones. The skimmed fat, however, can be used later as a cooking fat or added back to the diet as a nutrient, such as using marrow fat (majja) for vata disorders including immunodeficiency and weakness.

I frequently recommend soup stocks, especially for women to ensure fertility and to maintain bone density, and frequently include herbs that assist in this process including shatavari, peony, dang gui, rehmannia, American ginseng, codonopsis, ashwagandha, goji berry, astragalus, Chinese red date, horsetail, and nettle.

Spicy Saag – Nettle style

Spicy Saag – Nettle style

A few days ago on facebook I wrote little post on Nettle, and how it could be used as a substitute for a recipe in Food As Medicine called Spciy Saag. Well, yesterday I went into the forest and harvested nettle, along with some miner’s lettuce (Claytonia sibirica) and cleavers (Galium aparine) which all grew in the same area. It’s amazing how many wild edibles there are, probably growing in your backyard. For this recipe, any green vegetable can be used, although Nettles are particularly favored due to their high nutrient content.  Here’s a little history on Nettle, taken from my monograph at toddcaldecott.com.

Nettle has a long history of use all over the world as a food, medicine and textile fiber. Weiss properly calls Nettle a ruderale, meaning that it tends to grow around human settlements (1988, 261). Grieve states that the common name of Nettle is derived from the German noedl meaning ‘needle,’ possibly from its sharp sting, or in reference to the fact that it once furnished thread and cloth before the introduction of flax and hemp into Europe (1971, 575). ‘Net’ is stated as being the passive participle of ne, a verb that in many Indo-European languages such as Latin and Sanskrit, means ‘sew’ or ‘bind,’ respectively (Grieve 1971, 575). Nettle was at one time highly esteemed as a textile fiber, and is highly durable, once thought to be the only real equivalent to cotton, used by the third Reich during the second world war as a textile in manufacture of German uniforms (Grieve 1971, 575; Wood 1999, 482). Beyond its importance as a fiber however, Nettle has long been regarded as an important and nutritious green vegetable, one of the first edible green growing things of spring, picked young and eaten steamed or in soups, said to be a good corrector of the bowels. The body of the famous Tibetan yogi Milarepa is said to have turned green from consuming nothing other than Nettle during his meditations. Despite being classified as a weed in many parts of the North America, Nettle was at one time highly prized commodity in rural areas, where the English poet Campbell recounts of his travels, “In Scotland I have eaten nettles, I have slept in nettle sheets, and I have dined off a nettle tablecloth” (Grieve 1971 575). More recently Nettle has been used as a commercial source of chlorophyll, and Weiss states that this color has been used in Germany as a food coloring agent for canned vegetables (1988, 262; Mills and Bone 2000, 490).

Here is the recipe for Spicy Saag, from Food As Medicine:

Saag refers to any kind of stir-fried greens in Indian cookery, prepared with the characteristic Indian spices such as cumin and black mustard seed. While spinach is most commonly used nowadays, saag can be made with any kind of greens, such as amaranth greens found in Chinese markets as hin choy and Indian markets as chaulai. I frequently use the kale and chard in my garden. To boost the nutrient content, I also add in other herbs such as fresh cilantro and fenugreek (methi), or use curry leaf instead.

Ingredients
1-2 lbs of amaranth greens, chopped into 1 inch chunks
½ bunch finely chopped fenugreek (methi)
½ bunch finely chopped cilantro; or, 1-2 sprigs of curry leaves
one-thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, grated
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp black mustard seed
½ tsp hing powder
2 tbsp coriander powder
½-1 tsp turmeric
½-1 tsp black pepper
1-2 tsp pink salt (sanchal)
2-3 tbsp ghee

Directions
Melt ghee in a wok or large saucepan at medium heat, and when it begins to glisten add in fresh ginger, cumin and black mustard seed. If you are using curry leaf instead of cilantro, slide the leaves off the curry sprig and into the pan. When the mustard seeds just begin to pop, add in hing, coriander, turmeric, black pepper and pink salt. Stir for a half minute and then add in amaranth greens, turning the heat up a little higher. Cook veggies for about 2-3 minutes on high heat, then reduce it back to a medium heat. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, just until the leaves turn a bright, brilliant green. Serves 2-4 people.

For variations, use different herbs and spices. Have a little gas? Add some ajwain, crushed fenugreek seed or fennel seed. Maybe today the kapha is a little thick and heavy? Add in some red chili powder. Or instead of cilantro or curry leaf, try some Thai Basil instead.

Indian Flatbreads: roti, thepla and parantha

Indian Flatbreads: roti, thepla and parantha

There are many different types of Indian flatbread including roti (chapatti), thepla and parantha. The primary advantage of flatbread over conventional bread is that it’s easier to digest, and doesn’t have the same sticky and heavy properties as baked loaves. Roti is a plain Indian flatbread traditionally made with a stone-ground wheat flour called atta. Thepla is similar but thicker than roti, often made with different grains such as chana (chickpea) or millet, and usually includes herbs such as chopped fresh methi (fenugreek) or cilantro kneaded into the flour. A third type of Indian flatbread is parantha, which is usually stuffed with vegetables and herbs.

To make plain roti, follow these directions:

Ingredients
1 cup flour, germinated and roasted
1 cup sourdough culture (see below)
olive oil

Directions
Grind the flour to the desired consistency using a coffee grinder or a grain mill. Mix the flour and sourdough culture together, adding in a little water as required, and knead well. Place in a bowl and drizzle a little olive oil over the surface of the dough to keep it moist. Cover with a wet cloth and let sit for several hours in a warm place and let it ferment (2-18 hours). After fermentation, knead the dough again, and then break off pieces of the dough about the size of a golf ball, roll into a ball and put aside. Warm a large cast iron pan to medium heat with no oil. Sprinkle some flour onto a large flat surface such as a cutting board or a counter, and roll out each ball until it is a round, thin disc, and immediately place in the pan. Cook for approximately 1-2 minutes on each side. When golden brown, take the roti out of the pan and then place them on a hot burner very briefly until they puff up. Serves 3-4 people.

To make thepla use the same basic technique as roti, but add in the following ingredients after making the dough:

Ingredients
half cup fresh chopped methi (fenugreek)
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp ajwain seeds
1 tsp turmeric powder
½ tsp cracked black pepper
1 tsp salt

To make parantha prepare in the same manner as roti, but instead of mixing the ingredients into the flour, you are going to stuff the roti. For the filling many different vegetables can be used, including cabbage, broccoli and sweet potato, but my favorite is gobi parantha – made with cauliflower (‘gobi’).

Ingredients
1 small head of cauliflower, coarsely grated and drained
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp black mustard
½ tsp crushed coriander seed
½ tsp hing
½ tsp ajwain
½ tsp black pepper
½ tsp chili pepper
¼ tsp turmeric
½ tsp salt
2 tsp ghee

Directions
Grate the cauliflower (or any other vegetable), add the salt and mix well in a bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes then take a handful out at a time, squeezing out the excess liquid and put aside. Melt 1 tsp of ghee in a saucepan and roast the cumin, black mustard, coriander and ajwain for a minute until the mustard starts to pop, then add in the hing, turmeric and black pepper. Mix for a few seconds then add in the cauliflower. Stir-fry for a few minutes then put aside, half-cooked. Follow the recipe for roti: roll out each ball to about three inches in diameter, and place about 2 tbsp of filling in the middle. Make a dumpling by pulling the edges of the roti together, and then roll flat to no more than ¼ inch thickness. Parantha can also be made by rolling out two roti, laying the filling on one, covering with the second, pinching the edges closed and then rolling flat. Melt 1 tsp of ghee in a frying pan on medium-low heat, and fry each parantha on both sides until golden brown.

To Make Sourdough
Sourdough is a method to ferment flour made from whole cereal grains with naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria that deactivate antinutrient factors.  To make a sourdough culture blend one cup of whole grain flour with one cup of chlorine-free water.  Keep the starter in a warm place, such as in the kitchen, at temperatures between 70-80˚F/21-26˚C.  After 24 hours discard half the starter and add in a half-cup flour and a half-cup purified warm water to feed the culture, and repeat again the next day.  By day three this mixture will have a distinct yeasty smell, and on about day four the starter will become frothy, indicating that it is ready to use.  Often a brownish alcoholic liquid (‘hooch’) will appear on the surface – this is normal – just mix it back into the starter.