My memories of turmeric are of its bright color as sunny as marigold and earth.
In my moms pooja room next to bright red Kumkum and random scatter of yellow on temple steps.
A streak of yellow on the side cheek of my 3rd grade teacher.
A nasty stain on my white Saturday uniform
then I remember the aromas of green chillies and turmeric cooking together for lemon rice.
and then the distaste of turmeric milk when I was sick. Oh! no,not the fancy golden latte with honey and foam but a teaspoon of turmeric powder mixed into cows milk because my grandmother believed THAT cured all and any disease.
With the evolution of Yoga in the west, the sister science Ayurveda has entered into our doorsteps with the same ease as downward facing dog. And I think Turmeric is as popular as Adho Mukha Svanasana if not more. The soya/almond chai latte has been moved a row down in the cafes and has been replaced by $9 coconut milk golden lattes. Does this upset me, Noooo.I am not a purist of any kind but consider myself to be ever evolving yogi. Actually I find it amusing, as amusing as you would be ,if you new that there are street vendors in India who sell pizza dosa. Its a combinations of dosa, ketchup or some kind of tomato sauce slathered and topped with some process cheese or paneer. I am not saying its not good, I personally think its genius but an Italian or Italian American might chuckle or even disapprove. But I think these trends are here to stay and I will make my peace with it. One word of caution as we plunge into this world of golden milk. The body likes it when you give spices in small doses. So add little a time,in this case more is not better. As I googled golden milk,I have found recipes with 2 Tablespoons of turmeric powder for a mug of latte.
It is a quite a long post as I wanted to share the golden milk recipes from my childhood to the one I offer my vegan friends.Note that in India,while growing up there was no vegan milk. We drank milk from our farm or local farms.Cow milk in India is sacred, as sacred as mothers milk and will have to be treated with respect.So anything you make out of cows milk is believed to be healing like mothers milk.Every morning, as a ritual we got milk which was poured into a clean container, offered it to the deity, then put it on a stove top to bring it to a boil on a very slow flame.The top clot/cream was saved to make butter and what we drank was a skimmed milk with all its nutrition skill intact. So star of the recipe in a Indian golden milk my ancestors served was Milk and not turmeric.
So,lets get cooking!!
1. Amma's Ayurvedic recipe:
Its not really a recipe but pouring a hot cup of organic local milk into mug with honey, 1/2 teaspoon of ghee and 1teaspoon of ground turmeric powder. Mix well and drink while its still pretty warm. Make sure to stir the contents in between. otherwise, the turmeric settles at the bottom and my mom insisted we finish the bottom part.
Recipe 2 : Nutty Golden latte
for those special days like if you are pregnant or nursing a baby, getting over malaria :) or I will skip a meal and have a drink days.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup Cashews
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup pistachios
5 cardamom pods/ 2Tsp cardamom powder
3 Tsp ground turmeric powder
1tspn of saffron
8 to 10 black pepper corns
Honey/ maple syrup or brown sugar as sweetener
Take a small sauce pan add 1/4 cup each of your favorite raw nuts. I like Cashews for its creaminess, almonds for its grittiness and pistachios for their sweetness. On a very low flame, toast the nuts. You can double or triple the recipe and toast them in the oven.But I recommend making a small batch to see if you like this.Keep an eye on the nuts as they burn pretty fast. Once you get that toasted aroma, add cardamom pods and black pepper corn and turn off the stove. The heat from the pan is sufficient to warm up the spices.
Now, add the contents into a food processor along with turmeric,saffron and make a fine powder. If you have coffee grinder or spice grinder, thats the best one use.
Note** You can process them while they are still hot, and in small batches, otherwise you will land up spicy nut butter.. not a bad idea either.
To make your drink, lets call it Nutty Golden latte
There are 3 options,
Method 1
Bring half a cup of water + 1/2 cup of milk ( dairy or non dairy)to boil, add a tablespoon of nutty turmeric blend. Bring it to gentle boil and turn off the heat.
Pour into your favorite Mug with some honey or good maple syrup for sweetness.
Enjoy this almost dessert in a mug kind of a latte !
Method 2
In a blender, pour 1 cup of water + 1 cup of desired milk. Add 2 tablespoon of the nutty turmeric blend, your choice of sweetener. Blend on high for 2 minutes until you see smooth creamy liquid. Pour it in a mug and enjoy the smoothie with some ice.
Method 3
Strain the above blended contents into a sauce pan , bring it to gentle boil and enjoy a warm creamy latte.
Recipe 3 : Cafe style Vegan Golden milk
Ingredients
Use a combination of light unsweetened coconut milk + Almond milk/oat milk/cashew milk( one of the 3 for a creamier nuttier taste)
1 cup of unsweetened light coconut milk
1 cup of any other nut milk
1/2 cardamom powder
1/2 cinanmon powder
1 pinch of peppercorn powder
1tsp of Turmeric powder ( more if you like that bright yellow color but the body likes it when you give spices in small doses.. In this case more is not better)
1tsp of ghee or coconut oil
In a sauce pan, bring all the above contents to gentle boil ( do not over boil it). Tun off the heat, add honey, maple syrup or raw sugar. stir well and pour them into mugs. Enjoy the creamy,luscious golden latte.
If you made it to end of the page, hope you give the recipes a try and let me know which one you liked the most.
Take care and Namaskar
Savi.