Saffron Rice
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Highly prized for centuries and high in antioxidants saffron is not your typical spice, but are stigmas or threads harvested from the flower, crocus sativus, belonging to the iris family. Its price tag is about ten to twenty dollars per gram, but just a few threads is all that is needed to enhance flavour in any dish. Saffron has a sweet, slightly bitter taste, and its bright crimson red threads impart a heavenly glow to any dish.
In recent studies, saffron has been shown to have mood enhancing and antidepressant qualities. Saffron also has “anti-convulsant, anti-depressant, anti-inflammatory” properties, as well as “anti-tumor, radical scavenger effects, and learning and memory-improving effects”. Scientists have discovered 150 volatile and non-volatile compounds, with fifty having been identified. Discovery has revealed both water and fat soluble compounds, therefore saffron is best cooked with fat, like ghee or olive oil, and with water to reap its benefits.
Cook with saffron. Having a saffron supplement will heat up your liver, so you’d want to avoid that. Simply add a few pinches when you’re make rice, or simmer whole milk with saffron before bed. Use whole milk so the fat from the milk can bring the goodness of saffron into your cells and the calcium into your bones.
Research is growing, yet it may take years to fully understand saffron’s health benefits, so for now, as has traditionally been done for thousands of years, and in modern cuisines, again cook with saffron! A few pinches goes a long way. Marianne Teitelbaum suggests simmering whole milk with a just bit of saffron to help prevent Parkinson’s Disease, and to take caution if you have high pitta because over time saffron increases heat in the blood. With the same effect, but more potent, a saffron supplement in the long term will aggravate pitta dosha, and heat up the physiology. In fact, Ayurvedic doctor, and teacher Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra, who hails from a long line of Raj Vaidyas, physicians to the royalty of India, saw that his North American patients had pitta imbalances, stemming from over an heated liver, in addition to a compromised digestive system lacking in friendly bacteria. He concluded that with the SAD and lifestyle habits of North Americans, he had to create alternative forms of herbal delivery into the physiology in the form of creams, roll-ons and herbal nectars to avoid heating up the liver even more. In doing so, the herbs bypass the liver and digestive system when applied on the skin, and with herbal nectars, the vibrational quality of the herb is readily absorbed into the physiology instead of the crude form of the herb. With respect to saffron, and also with turmeric, a popular supplement, taking them as supplements, in the long term, over heats the liver because the liver processes everything we ingest.
The bottom line, cook with saffron as been done for centuries in Persian, Arab, Indian and some European cuisines. My simple saffron rice recipe takes 20 minutes to make! You will get the full benefits of the therapeutic compounds found in saffron, instead of popping a supplement.
Saffron Rice. Fifty constituents of saffron have been identified in research studies. The carotenoid, crocin gives saffron its bright red colour, picrocrocin imparts its bitter flavour, and safranal its distinct aroma.
Ayurvedic Profile of Spices in the Saffron Rice Recipe
Cinnamon - warming quality; helps metabolize carbohydrates and sugar
Cloves - warming spice, opens the physical channels, but not aggravate pitta dosha
Saffron - high in antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, anti-convulsant, anti-depressant, anti-tumour
Saffron Rice
Yield: 2 - 3 Servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
½ cup basmati rice
1 tsp ghee or olive oil
⅔ cup water
2 pinches of saffron
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
2 cardamom pods, crushed
instructions
Soak basmati rice in water for at least 10 minutes, and rinse well.
Add water and spices, stirring all together.
Turn heat to high, and allow grains to boil for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add ghee or olive oil, then cover with a lid, turn off stove, and cook for 15 minutes.
Fluff up the grains to release steam and salt to taste.
Serve with your choice of protein and vegetables.
Enjoy!
References
Saffron Study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6266642/
Saffron for Teenage Moodiness? The Evidence is Immature https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking/saffron-teenage-moodiness-evidence-immature
Vaidya R. K. Mishra- Notes from Shaka Vansiya Ayurveda Courses, Practicum, Conferences and Lectures 2003-2015