RAINS bring trouble sometimes.
Besides clogged roads it can also cause sore throats and a runny nose. Taking a break from those oft repeated home remedies to battle the sniffles, we have something a little more appetising — soups! This season is not just about chicken broths. It's time to spoon up something exotic. Introducing some healthy, wholesome, pungent and delicious soups to help you get through this season without a hiccup…
Hot & Sour Soup
This classic Chinese soup claimed variously by Mandarin and Sichuan cuisines is ideal for cold and sour throat.
Usually meat-based, the addition of red peppers or white pepper and chillies along with ginger gives it that much added respite from blocked nose.
Nenju Ellumbu Soup
Once again it’s the combination of peppercorns and ginger that will warm the cockles of your heart. That and the choicest lamb ribs. This broth is said to work wonders on that stuffy nose and teams lamb ribs with ginger, pepper, coriander and green chillies. “Garlic and pepper were used in ancient times to cure respiratory diseases.
Also, when it comes to hot soups, the actual benefit is in the steam. You sip the hot broth and breath in the steam, this helps clear up congestion,” advises Dr Hari Kumar, a noted Mumbai physician.
Nellikkai Soup
It is understood that fresh gooseberry juice with honey helps control a cold. Gooseberry powder with honey twice or thrice a day can cure a chronic dry cough.
Try a bowl of hot gooseberry soup. With peppercorns, curry leaves, mint, dry ginger powder and green chillies.“It’s a good coolant for your body and when had hot it’s great for a blocked nose too,” says celebrity chef, Jacob Sahaya Kumar.
Tom Yum Soup
This Thai favourite is perfect for the rains. With its blend of lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, bird’s eye chillies and roast curry paste, it makes for a hot and spicy broth. In fact, another ‘cold fighter’ is a piping hot cup of lemongrass tea. But we suggest you try the soup.
Aatin Soup
This healthy soup from Kerala is a good antidote for a cold and sore throat. A good measure of pounded pepper and ginger is added to rich mutton stock.
THE QUICK FIX
A steaming bowl of chicken soup has been touted as the quick fix for just about every ailment, from the common cold to a nasty scrape on the knee.
While chicken soup isn’t really a cure for a cold, it does help alleviate some of the annoying symptoms that come with it. And, if nothing else, it definitely is a delicious, comforting meal that helps keep your body hydrated. Stock or broth begins with cooking together bones, some pieces of meat and fat, vegetables and good water. Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily — not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons — stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine.
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