Re: Chinese liver herbs (more questions,Spirit)

Burdock root & dandalion root and leaves can be eaten the same way you eat carrot or green sallad. You can add it into any soup.
You can use roots to make a tea or a tincture!

If you put those roots in Vodka, you will have a tincture within 3 weeks!



Carp Soup (Koi Koku)

1 pound fresh carp (trout or snapper can be use instead)
1-11/2 pound burdock root
1 tablespoon oil
3/4 cup barley miso
1/4 cup used bancha leaves
1/4 teaspoon fresh grated ginger

Cut fish into 1 inch pieces. Cut burdock into thinly shaved pieces, like sharpening a pencil with a knife. Saute the burdock for 10-20 minutes in oil. Add the fish and cover with enough water to cover over fish with 2 inches. Tie some bancha or Kukicha leftovers together in a cheesecloth. Add this sack to soup pot. The tea leaves or twigs will help soften the fish bones. Bring to a boil and cook for at least 2 hours (up to 4-8 hours) on a low flame. If you use a pressure cooker cook for 1-2 hours. Remove the tea bag and add miso and ginger. Season to taste. Simmer for 10 minutes. Garnish with chopped scallions. Eat 1-2 bowls per day. Variation: instead of carp with burdock, you can use snapper or trout with carrots.

Uses: strengthens the whole system, decreased energy, decreased sexual vitality, lack of mother's milk, and anemia.


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Sauteed and simmered chicken and vegetables [ Chikuzen-ni ]
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Ingredients
5 oz (150g) dark meat from the leg
1 burdock root (big size)
1 carrot (middle size)
6 - 8 satoimo
5 oz (150g) boiled Japanese butterbur
2 boiled bamboo shoots (small size)
1 sheet konjak
6 -8 dried shiitake mushrooms
3 sliced ginger
2 cups soup stock
sesame oil
sake, mirin, soy sauce, salt

Directions

Prepare ingredients
dark meat from the leg : Cut into a bite-sized piece.
burdock root: Wash well and scrape off rind with the back of knife. Chop up into a bite-sized piece and soak water for a while.

carrrot: Pare and chop up into a bite-sized piece.
satoimo: Pare and cut into a bite-sized piece.
Japanese butterbur: Wash and cut into 1 inch long. If you use raw one, you see here.
bamboo shoots: Wash and chop up into a bite-sized piece.
konjak: Pick off ita konjak into a bite pieces and boil with a pinch of salt for 2 - 3 minutes.
dried shiitake mushroom: soak into water for 30 minutes.

Cut into a half.
Pound 3 sliced ginger with the back of knife.
Heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil in the frying pan, put sliced ginger and dark meat from the leg. Saute until the surface of meat becomes whitish and take out meat.
Put all ingredients 1) and saute quickly. Put all ingredients on the flat colander and pour boiled water on the ingredients to remove excess oil.

Pour 2 cups soup stock into a pan and put meat and ingredients 4). Add 2 tablespoons sake, mirin, soy sauce, and a pinch of salt and heat. When soup stock comes to boil, simmer for 15 minutes over a middle flame. Sometimes mix with a spatula. At last, turn up the gas and boil down the broth.


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(Japanese)
Sauteed burdock and beef [ Gobou to gyuniku no itameni ]
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Ingredients
1 (thick type) or 2 (thin type) burdock root
3 ounces thin slices of beef
sesame oil
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon soy sauce, sake

Directions

Wash burdock with a scrubbing brush and scrape off rind with the back of knife. Soak burdock shavings immediately in water (See picture).

Cut beef into thin strips.
Heat sesame oil in saucepan. Saute beef quickly over high heat and once take out. Saute burdock. Add soy sauce, sake & mirin.


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Dandelion Root Soup

2-10 dandelion roots, depending on their size
2-3 cups water
1-4 tsp. miso paste (optional - sold in refrigerated section of health food stores.

The darker the miso, the stronger the flavor)


The roots are deep and they retain their properties better when not broken off, so use a trowel or shovel to loosen the roots on four sides of the plant before excavating it.

Shake off the dirt. Bring them into the kitchen and separate the tops from the roots. Wash the roots gently, removing loose dirt and leaf-slime (where the leaves were attached to the roots). Don't be a perfectionist about how clean they are. Put them in a pot and cover with 2-3 cups of water. Bring to a gentle boil, then cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the roots are quite soft.

You can use the tenderest leaves and the flowers as salad vegetables. If you have tops left over, wash the leaves, throw out the old flower-stalks and seed-heads, and save any flowers (don=t wash these). When the roots are soft, turn off the heat and add the leaves and flowers to the soup. Cover and steam (without additional heat) until the soup is cool enough to drink. Strain off the liquid and drink it straight or add miso for extra flavor. Take 1-4 tsp. of miso paste in a small bowl and add 2 tbsp.-1/4 cup of the soup. Mix the paste into the liquid until it is no longer a paste. Then add to the rest of the soup. If the soup tastes quite bitter, it means the medicinal properties are strong. Make a toast to your health and sip in an easy chair as you relax...

Dandelion leaves, when analyzed, have been found to be the very most nutritious vegetable you can eat. They are also a bitter digestive aid and a very effective diuretic (removing excess fluid from the body) without depleting the body of minerals. For the diuretic action, it's best to take a liquid extract made from the fresh leaves. The leaves and actually the whole plant are very helpful for people with high blood pressure. Fresh dandelion leaves in the diet are helpful to encourage milk production in breastfeeding mothers. To add great nutritional value to salads and rice dishes, pick the tenderer leaves and chop them finely with scissors. Mix in with rice or other vegetables, and add sauce or dressing.

Stop trying to eradicate dandelion from your lawn and flowerbeds: instead, cultivate this bounteous plant and dig it up or selectively snip for food and medicine! It will provide you with top-quality nourishment almost all year. The flowers will beautify you and your yard, the roots create drainage channels in compacted soils and restore mineral health to abused soils, and children will love to come and blow on the seeds!



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