🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Expert Tips for Cooking Fragrant Porridge
Modern cooking methods now include pressure cookers, electric rice cookers, even microwaves, capable of preparing porridge. Traditional methods usually involve boiling and steaming. Boiling means bringing water to a boil over high heat, then switching to low heat to slowly reduce the broth until thick and creamy. Never let the porridge leave the heat. High-quality porridge requires continuous low-heat simmering until fully tender. Steaming involves boiling the mixture over high heat, then transferring it to a covered wooden bucket and steaming for about two hours. This method yields richer, purer aroma. Home cooks usually prefer boiling.
When making porridge, ensure sufficient water is added at once—complete the process without interruption—to achieve the ideal blend of rice and water, smooth and uniform. Rice can either be soaked in clean water for 5–6 hours before cooking, or washed and cooked directly. Soaking reduces cooking time but may cause nutrient loss. Common home-style porridge preparation:
Place rice and small beans in a thermos overnight, add hot water, and enjoy the next morning—ideal for those who love sleeping in. Pay attention to ingredient order:
Hard-to-cook items first, such as beans and starchy ingredients; remove the bitter core from lotus seeds; soak raw almonds and walnuts beforehand to remove bitterness and skins before cooking; raw peanuts, lotus root, and lily bulbs should be added near the end to retain crispness. When cooking bean porridge, bring beans to a boil, then add cold water several times to “shock” them—this helps them open faster—before adding rice. Soak Job’s tears (coix seed) until shiny before cooking; it cooks quickly and doesn’t require high heat—add just minutes before finishing. When making vegetable porridge, add salt, chicken essence, oil, and other seasonings only after the rice is fully cooked. Finally, add fresh greens—when cold vegetables meet hot porridge, their aroma bursts forth, and the greens remain vibrant and nutritious.
Five Essentials for Delicious Porridge
Nutritionists point out: drinking porridge won’t cause weight gain because it contains less rice and more water, resulting in low starch content. With high water content, it boosts metabolism, aids digestion and absorption. Porridge is nutritionally rich and, like water, helps cleanse internal organs. After eating a bowl, one feels refreshed throughout. Hence, doctors often recommend porridge for patients recovering from serious illnesses—light, easy-to-digest meals. Porridge acts as the best lubricant for restoring bodily functions. It offers tonifying benefits without causing obesity. Both breakfast and evening snacks are excellent choices. But making good porridge is simple yet challenging. Here are five essentials—did you follow them?
1. Cooking raw rice into porridge tastes far better than turning cooked rice into porridge.
2. Use round rice—it cooks faster and softer, with better texture.
3. Adding bone broth is a secret to delicious, nutritious porridge.
4. The delicious flavor comes from Maillard reaction—the chemical process of high-temperature browning.
5. Always use fresh rice and fresh ingredients—otherwise, the porridge lacks freshness.
Autumn Porridge Recommendations
1. Sugarcane Porridge
Use fresh sugarcane to extract about 100–150 ml juice, mix with water, and cook with rice. This porridge clears heat, generates fluids, nourishes yin, and alleviates dryness. Suitable for post-illness recovery with insufficient body fluids, irritability, dry mouth, lung dryness cough, and constipation.
2. Polygonatum Porridge
Use 10–30g cleaned polygonatum, decoct to concentrate the liquid, remove residue, or use 30–60g fresh polygonatum, cut into slices, decoct, remove residue, then cook with rice. Add sugar to taste when finished. This dish tonifies spleen and stomach, moistens heart and lungs. Ideal for weak spleen and stomach, fatigue, poor appetite, dry cough due to lung deficiency, or hemoptysis from pulmonary tuberculosis.
3. Solomon’s Seal Porridge
Wash 50g fresh, plump Solomon’s seal, remove roots, chop finely, decoct to extract concentrated juice, remove residue. Alternatively, use 20g dried Solomon’s seal, decoct, remove residue, add rice and water to cook into thin porridge. Add rock sugar and briefly reheat. This porridge nourishes yin, moistens lungs, generates fluids, and quenches thirst. Suitable for lung yin injury, dry cough with little or no phlegm, post-high fever thirst, dry mouth, persistent low-grade fever, and as an auxiliary food therapy for heart failure in various types of heart disease.
4. Adenophora Porridge
First, decoct 15–30g adenophora to extract juice, remove residue. Add rice to cook into porridge. When done, add rock sugar and reheat. Or use 30–60g fresh adenophora, wash and slice, decoct to extract juice, then cook with rice and rock sugar. This dish nourishes the stomach, moistens lungs, removes phlegm, and stops coughing. Suitable for lung heat and dryness, dry cough with little phlegm, lung qi deficiency, stomach-lung yin deficiency, chronic cough without phlegm, dry throat, or post-illness thirst.
5. Pearl Jade Two Treasures Porridge
First, cook 60g raw coix seed until soft. Then mash 60g raw yam and cut 30g persimmon frost into small pieces. Combine and cook into a paste-like porridge. This porridge tonifies lungs, strengthens spleen, and nourishes stomach. Suitable for internal yin deficiency with heat, dry cough from fatigue, loose stools, reduced appetite, and all spleen-lung qi deficiency conditions.
6. Rehmannia Porridge
Chop 25g fresh rehmannia into small pieces, boil with water for about half an hour, filter the juice, repeat the process, and combine the liquid, concentrating to about 100 ml. Cook 75g rice into white porridge. Stir in the rehmannia juice while hot. Add a little sugar to taste. This dish nourishes yin, strengthens the stomach, cools blood, and generates fluids. Useful for yin deficiency with tidal fever, night sweats, chronic cough, hemoptysis, poor appetite, weight loss, restlessness due to heat, thirst, red eyes upon waking that persist.