A Home-Based Medicine for your Upset Tummy!
Guzzling on some mouth-watering treats is always fun in the festive season, but it is vital to make sure you never end up with the troubled tummy due to overindulging. It may be tough to resist your appetite, particularly if you are bounded by tasty food, but here is an assured way by which you can avert a tummy upset.
Since long time, our family elders have been preparing a medicinal concoction at home, which is to be devoured the night before any festival eve. In fact, nursing this medicine to youngsters in the family is roughly a tradition in majority of the South Indian houses. The concoction, geared up using herbs and spices that are easily accessible, helps in digestion. Once prepared, this medicine can be hoarded in a container for more than 15 days, and a small measure of it has to be consumed daily in the early morning in empty stomach.
Here is how this medicinal concoction is prepared:
Ingredients
Ginger (one or two pieces) - Coriander seeds (50 grams) - Cumin seeds (50 grams) - Oregano (100 grams) - Black peppercorns (50 grams) - Long pepper (one or two pieces) - Jaggery (grated, equivalent to the medicinal herbs) - Honey (2 tbsp.) - Ghee (4 tsp) - Lemon (a small size)
Method of Preparation:
Arid (dry) the ginger, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, oregano, black peppercorn and long pepper under the sunlight for a whole day and hit them all together to a fine powder. Sieve the powder through a strainer to make it fine and gracious. Heat one cup of water (or above as required) in a bowl and combine the ground powder when water starts boiling. Keep on stirring, so to avoid the formation of powder lumps. Continue stirring the mix till it turns out to be semi-solid, similar to a fine gravy.
In place of it, you can shallow heat the above ingredients in a kadai initially, and grind them in a mixer to a fine powder with a cup of water till it becomes a fine paste. Now, collect this paste on to the kadai again and start heating it up in a medium flame till it starts turning semi-solid.
In mean time, grate a lump of jaggery, measuring to about one cup, and add it to this mixture. Keep on stirring till the jaggery gets dissolve well.
Continue stirring in medium flame for about 30 minutes or once the concoction leads solidifying. Once in every five minutes or so, add a spoon of ghee and a little drop of honey to the mixture.
Once the concoction attains a semi-solid states, squash a slice of lemon on it. Switch off the flame and allow it to cool. To ensure the medicine is in right form, try rolling it in amid your fingers to form a small ball.
Keep in mind that as the mixture cools, it will turn even more solid. So, remember to prepare this concoction only in low flame, and switch off the gas at once if you feel it has arrived its semi-solid state.
Place this medicinal mixture in a clean container, and hoard it in a cool, dry place for future use.
