grace
We grow our own turmeric and process it to obtain turmeric powder. I had picked up a single plant from my mother’s garden years ago. That one plant produced a clump of rhizomes which I separated and planted them. Today I get enough turmeric for our daily needs and I also gift the powder to family and friends. I keep aside some rhizomes each year for replanting.
It takes about a year for turmeric to form and once the plants die, turmeric is dug out. It is then cleaned thoroughly and boiled in water. The boiled turmeric is then thinly sliced and put in the sun for drying It takes about a week for the turmeric to dry completely. It is then powdered.
We use turmeric in our daily cuisine.
Image Credit:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plant_turmeric.JPG
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Do you use turmeric in your dishes?
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Yes
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Only recently I started to use turmeric, I like it a lot.
Here it has been in use for years. Most of our curries and dishes must have turmeric.
I put turmeric in our family’s food almost every day. I have not been successful in growing it yet, but I will try again if I can find some rhizome which has not undergone radiation. In addition to the dried powder, I use the fresh root like ginger, and I often use it to flavour my homemade ferments like kombucha.
Do you have a special implement for peeling it, Grace, or you just use a knife? I can’t help losing a lot of the flesh when I peel using a knife.
PS Are the leaves edible?
I have mentioned the process involved to prepare turmeric powder. There is nothing to peel. The dried stufff is ground to powder. Yes ginger needs scraping to remove the skin and it is used when it is fresh.
The leaves have a lovely smell. We use them to prepare a sweet item. I will write a post on it. They are not edible but used for their aroma.
Do you mean that you don’t peel the turmeric at all, and that the skin is included in what becomes the powder? The root is not eaten fresh at all in India?
May be fresh turmeric is peeled or the skin is scraped off. I have never used fresh turmeric.
The skin is so thin in that by the time it is boiled, sliced and dried it shrivels so much that the skin is hardly visible. The stuff becomes one-tenth its weight. The powder is as yellow as one gets in the market.
I have written the post on turmeric leaves
https://virily.com/virily_poll/turmeric-leaves/
I publish an article in Virily about a Turmeric tonic that will change your life. Here is the link, perhaps you like it https://virily.com/virily_poll/the-tonic-that-will-change-your-life/
Thanks. Turmeric is used by every household here and we were successful in growing it.
I clicked on that link and see I have already responded to it (lol)
That is great. Reading your article reminded me of the article I wrote. Sorry.
I like the smell of the fresh turmeric
You must be using it in your cooking.
Yes, we are using it. It has lot of medical properties too.