How to make five soothing food for sickness (remedy food) 〜病人食〜 | easy Japanese home cooking recipe

Welcome to Taj's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you 5 Japanese recipes what you can eat when you have a cold. So over a year ago I made this video of Japanese baby food and in there I'm showing a Japanese porridge what we would normally eat when we have a cold in Japan but I also got a request on what we could eat when we have a cold so I decided to make this video. And the request was from someone who wrote me a very inspiring comment and this comment really touched me so I'm going to show you that comment at the end of the video. So the first thing, the main thing is the rice porridge, I'm going to show you how you can make with a regular pot and then second is the scallion soup with ginger and garlic. So the third and fourth are kind of like preserved food, what I often have in the cupboard just in case when I get cold or when I want to prevent cold and the fifth is ground apple which is probably like an alternative for the applesauce in the western countries. So I hope this video can give you some ideas what you can have when you have colds. So these recipes are more for when you have heavy colds, when you don't have really much appetite, but when you're getting a little bit better and when you have a little more appetite, you can also have this zousui which is also a common thing what we eat when we have cold in Japan. So I hope you check that out as well. Then let's get started. Here are the ingredients for the recipes what we eat when we're sick in Japan. So for the first thing and the main thing is the rice porridge which I'll make it with rice and as condiments I have umeboshi and soy sauce. For the scallion soup I have scallion, garlic, ginger, dashi powder and salt. And these two I made a couple days ago. One is grated ginger and honey and the other is sliced daikon also in honey. And lastly I'm going to grate an apple. Then let's start cooking. So I'm going to make the porridge first. As the first thing I'm going to rinse the rice. So this is a half cup of rice. So there are different variations of rice porridge. Today I'm going to make a standard variation, seven times more water to the rice. But if you want to make it less soupy you can also make five times rice porridge or if you want to make it more soupy when you're feeling really sick then you can make 10 times rice porridge. And this is the thickness that people make for their babies. So this is half a cup of rice. So in this I'm going to add in three and a half cups of water. So you may think this is a lot of water but this is how we make rice porridge. Now let's cook the rice porridge. So when you make a rice porridge you don't need to let the rice soak in the water as you would when you're cooking normal Japanese rice. Because one it'll be cooking a large amount of water and also it'll be cooking longer. I'm going to turn the heat to high and bring this to boil. When making a rice porridge unless you're using a pressure cooker don't put the lid on. Otherwise the water is going to overflow. So once this comes to boil I'm going to turn the heat to simmer. Then I'm going to cook like this and simmer for 15 minutes. So every now and then you might want to kind of stir around like this. Otherwise the rice can get stuck on the bottom and get burnt. So the 15 minutes has passed. I'm going to turn the heat off and at this point I'm going to put on the lid. And then I'm going to let this sit for 10 more minutes and let it steam on its own. Now 10 minutes has passed. This is finished for the rice porridge. And then we're going to put this aside and let's cook the next dish. Now let's make the scallion soup. I'm going to cut up the scallion in small pieces. So don't worry if you can't cut like this thin. This will be cooked for a long time so it doesn't really matter how thick they are. Then that's finished for that. Then we're going to prepare the garlic and the ginger. So for the garlic and ginger you can either use a garlic smasher and smash it. Or you can just grate it as well. And also the ginger I'm going to peel the skin. So that's done for that. Let's cook. So in a pot I'm going to put in one cup of water. And I'm going to put in all the ingredients in here. A fourth teaspoon of dashi powder or a half package of this. And then just a pinch of salt. Just that much. And turn the heat to high and bring this to boil. So once this has come to boil I'm going to turn the heat to low. Put the lid on and cook like this in low heat for 10 minutes or so. So 10 minutes has passed. So as you can see the scallion has been cooked and it's almost melting. I'm going to turn the heat off. And this is finished. Now I'm going to go to the next recipe. Here I have daikon radish soaked in honey. And here ginger also soaked in honey. First I'm going to show you how I made these five days ago. So let's first make the daikon radish soaked in honey. Looking at the container probably just going to need like that much. Then I'm going to cut this in about two to three millimeter slices. I'm going to put this in the container with the honey. So I'm just going to put in the honey and slice of daikon radish. Another layer of honey. Radish. Layer of honey. Just like this. I'm going to let this sit for like five days or so. And let the honey soak out the liquid from the daikon radish. Next we're going to make the honey ginger. So today I have organic ginger so I don't need to peel the skin off. But if you have regular ginger you might want to peel it. But I'm going to cut away a little bit of the dried part. And then with a grater I'm going to grate this. So in this I'm going to put in the honey. So I usually put a double amount of the honey to the ginger. So this is about a third of the bottle so this is perfect. I'm going to fill the rest with honey. So as you can see the ginger and the honey are separated. But after a couple days this gets mixed on its own. Now for this I don't need any special preparation. This I'll serve just like as it is. And for the ginger honey I'm going to put it in a hot water. So I'm going to put about a tablespoon. And this I'm going to put in about half teaspoon of hot water. Then these are finished. And as the last thing I'm going to prepare the grated apple. So in many countries you have prepared applesauce. Of course that's good but in Japan we don't have that culture. So instead we have the grated apple. So to do that first I'm going to take away the pit. Then you can just grate it as it is like this. But the apple will start oxidizing really soon and start turning brown. So to prevent that I'm going to soak this in salt water. In about a cup of water I'm going to soak in about a half teaspoon of salt. I'm going to let this soak here. Then I'm going to grate this with a grater. Then this is finished for that. Now as everything is finished I'm going to reheat the porridge and the soup. And also the scallion soup. Now everything is finished preparing. Let's eat. Okay let's eat. Itadakimasu. So then I'll start with the daikon radish syrup. This is more to ease out the sore throat than the cold itself. And then the ginger honey tea. Very nice. Then let's dig in. So the porridge itself is usually very hot. Please be very careful that you don't burn your tongue. What we often do is put it in a separate bowl like this and cool off like this. Itadakimasu. Wow this is so soothing. So easy on the stomach. So you can eat the rice porridge like this plain. What we often have as condiments are these umeboshi which are salted pickled plums with a little bit of soy sauce to it. Have a small piece like this. Put in the rice porridge. Eat it together like this. The sourness of the umeboshi and the soy sauce gives good flavor to the porridge. Let's have a little bit of soup. Itadakimasu. Because we cooked the scallion for a good 10 minutes it's so soft it almost melts in the mouth. So good. So excuse me for the slurping. Then the last grated apple. Itadakimasu. As a kid I actually kind of liked being sick at home because my mother was there the whole day with me. I was able to watch tv the whole day. Actually wasn't too bad. This flavor of the grated apple just kind of brings me back the nostalgic memory of that from childhood. Oh that was so soothing. Oh that was very soothing. So I hope this video helped you find what food you can eat when you're half cold. For the rice porridge this is like the basic rice porridge. You can also add in like a couple other ingredients if you're feeling a little bit more fit. You can also add in like eggs or scallion or like some other meat. So like I said in the beginning I want to share one comment that I got for one of my videos because it really touched me. I started this channel about a year and a half ago just kind of like as a hobby and thought it might be kind of interesting for some people but never thought it could change somebody's life. And so here goes. I want to thank you Taiji for this channel. I live in America and I have been seriously ill for several years and had to have a large portion of my digestive tract removed to save my life. Eating has been a nightmare and everything since then made me feel nauseated and sick. I have a lot of medication for pain, nausea, fatigue and weakness. I had no hope nor did my doctors give me any. But I felt attracted to Japanese soup, never tried it and hoped it would help. I gather all ingredients and have been eating only your recipes, mostly miso soup, rice and chicken for two weeks now. I use all authentic ingredients. I can't believe how much better I feel mentally, physically and emotionally. I've been able to stop the pain and nausea medicine. I would love to see what Japanese grandmothers feed their sick family members. You never know how much you help another just by sharing your skills and passion. Thank you so much. Keep those Japanese home cooking recipes coming. Natto is up next. Like this person says, I never thought that this video can be so helpful for some people. I actually feel very grateful that I was able to help somebody like in this way. And I'm also able to run this channel because of you guys, because of viewers. So thank you so much for your support. Always make me so happy to read all your comments. Then I look forward to see you next video. Bye.