Are you thinking I have made a mistake in the title of the post?? Jaggery has a medicinal value? Isn’t it strange? To tell you the truth, I never knew about it until I read an interesting article in one of the old Kannada weekly. I thought it would be useful for my readers.
- Drink jaggery panak(any drink using jaggery), while drinking water eat a bit of jaggery or add a bit of jaggery to day to day dishes. This will help in reducing the occurance of headache.
- For sprain, heat jaggery and ghee, when it is still warm, apply to sprain. The pain reduces slowly.
- For running nose, mix jaggery with some curd(curd should not be sour) and eat.
- For headache, mix old jaggery with same proportion of sesame seeds. Grind both with a little milk. Heat the mixture with a small quantity of ghee. Apply this to the forehead and sleep. Headache reduces gradually.
- For continuous severe headaches, mix ghee and jaggery in same proportion and eat daily for 5-6 days. The headache goes off.
In olden days, people used to make tea and coffee using jaggery, but these days people are using sugar instead of jaggery. But still some people use jaggery for tea, coffee and other drinks and due to this they get definite health improvement.
These days since medicines are available for almost all the diseases people might laugh at some of these remedies. But my whole purpose is to store such precious bits of information and I am sure these will come handy one or the other day.
Konkani food is usually based around coconut. We make a variety of dishes with it. Though the masala which we use is almost same, there is a remarkable difference in taste from one dish to the other. I usually prepare two-three stapled side dishes like Mooga randayi (also called as Mooga ambat), dudde randayi and few others which I would be posting in coming days. I had forgotten about the others, but thanks to “aayisrecipes”, I am learning most of them now.
One such delicious recipe is, ‘Chana ghashi’. Madhura sent me this recipe as well as the picture. I have tasted it many times when I was a kid and it has amazing taste. I am surprised at the way our older generations used almost all the vegetables and the whole grains in their cooking. Thanks Madhura for the recipe and the picture :D.
Ingredients: Kala Chana(small black chickpea) 1 Cup Grated coconut 1/2 Cup Curry leaves 1 strand Hing(Asafoetida) a pinch Mustard seeds 1 tea spn Red chillies 6-7 Tamarind Raw banana(plantain) 1 ( cut into square pieces) Oil 1 tea spn Salt
Method: Soak kala chana overnight. Next day pressure cook it (4 wistles). Grind together coconut, tamarind and red chillies. Cook the raw banana with a little salt seperately in a different vessel, as the raw banana cooks fast. Now in a vessel pour the ground masala, add the boiled chana , banana. Add salt and give it a boil for 5 to 7 mins, remove from heat. Heat oil, add mustard seeds, when they start popping, add curry leaves and asafoetida and season the curry. Serve as a side dish with rice.
Serves : 3 Preparation time : 30min (Including the cooking time)
