CILANTRO SAUCE – the anti-cancer “ketchup”!

Makes about 2 ½ cups (about 550 ml) or 24 “mini muffins” of frozen sauce

This delicious sauce transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary – and it’s easy to make. All you need are some common fresh ingredients and a blender. If you think of this of this sauce as your anti-cancer “ketchup” and use it for almost everything – as we do at my house — you will be adding great taste AND lots of anti-cancer nutrients to every dish.

Some yeas ago, Edward Hamann, a culinary expert on food from the Asian subcontinent and a wonderful cooking instructor who is now at Sur La Table, taught a small group of us how to make his fabulous Fresh Cilantro Chutney (Dhaniya ki Chatni ).  I started with his amazing recipe, added turmeric, black pepper, made a few other changes, and that’s how this Cilantro Sauce recipe evolved.

Ingredients

½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

+ Monamifood “Why Citrus?” How do citrus fruits help to prevent cancer?

½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice

+  If you do not have lime juice, just use 1 cup of lemon juice.

¾ cup chopped walnuts

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon peeled and roughly chopped fresh ginger

+ Monamifood “Why Ginger?” How does ginger help to prevent cancer?

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed slightly with a meat mallet or the back of a heavy cup

+ Monamifood “Why Garlic?” How does garlic help to prevent cancer?

2-3 Serrano peppers, stemmed and roughly chopped, including seeds

+ Use more or less peppers depending on how hot you want it to be

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon agave nectar

+  You can use 2 tablespoons of sugar plus 1 tablespoon water instead of the agave nectar.

+  This amount of sugar or agave nectar is really very little per serving, so it’s OK.

1 tablespoon ground turmeric

+  Monamifood “Why Turmeric?” How does turmeric (and black pepper) help to prevent cancer?

+  Sometimes I add more turmeric. Experiment and add more turmeric, if you like.

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ – ½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 – 3 bunches (about 7/8 pound) fresh cilantro, including all but the very ends of the stems

Directions

Place the ingredients into a blender – in the order given above, but do not put all the cilantro in at one time. Using a spatula, firmly push the cilantro down toward the metal blade of the blender; then place the cover on the blender and blend until a lovely smooth sauce results.  Note: You will have to push the cilantro toward the blender blade quite a few time times, but always when the blender if off, not running!

A few of the MANY ways to use this sauce

+  Use as a condiment to liven up almost everything, including fish, chicken, eggs, or tofu.

+ Use as a hot or cold sauce to go with almost everything.

+  Spread on whole grain bread. I made a sardine and onion open-faced sandwich by spreading this Cilantro Sauce liberally onto a piece of lightly toasted whole grain sourdough bread. Then I add a couple of slices of red onion. And, I topped that with sardines (from a can of King Oscar Sardines in Olive Oil). Note: To prepare the sardines for the sandwich, I put the sardines into a strainer and rinsed them with cold filtered water to remove the excess olive oil. Then I let the water drain off well before adding them to the sandwich.)

+  Mix with ripe avocado to make a lovely dip or spread. I just put some of this Cilantro Sauce-avocado mixture on slices of daikon and it was fabulous. The next time I need to bring an appetizer to someone’s party, this is what I plan to bring – it’s delicious and a great conversation starter too!

+  Sauté any vegetable in olive oil and mix some of this sauce in at the end.

+  By the way, I just mixed some of this sauce with some sauted greens (sauted tops of the daikon radish). Superb!

+  Add to soups — bean soups, chicken soups, vegetable soups, fish soups

+  Add olive oil to make this sauce into a salad dressing!

Storage

+  This sauce gets a little thicker by the next day.

+  This recipe makes a lot of sauce. I like to make this large quantity and freeze most of it in 100% food grade silicone mini muffin pans. When frozen, I just pop the frozen mini “muffins” out, and store them in a plastic freezer storage bag in the freezer. (The plastic does not interact with the food, so it’s OK.) Then I just defrost the amount of sauce that I need whenever I want some – as in every day!

+  Since this recipe is made with fresh ingredients and contains garlic, I would store it in the refrigerator for a day or tw, not longer.

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni

Why ginger?

How does ginger help to prevent cancer?

As Dr. Servan-Schreiber states (Anti-Cancer, page 121), “Ginger root also acts as a powerful antiinflamatory and an antioxidant… It acts against certain cancer cells. Moreover, it helps reduce the creation of new blood vessels.” (New blood vessels are necessary for the cancer to grow and spread.)

For more information about ginger, see Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s database, “About Herbs Botanicals and Other Products:” Summary information for the consumer and detailed information for the health professional.

Why turmeric and black pepper?

Dry/powdered or Fresh Turmeric (peel, chop, freeze) – use anytime!

Curcumin and other chemicals in turmeric are powerful anti-inflamatory agents. In the lab, it has been shown that curcumin inhibits a many different cancers. For more on how turmeric fights cancer cells, see Anti-Cancer by David Servan-Schreiber, p. 104-106.

Also, as mentioned on Dr. Servan-Schreiber’s blog,  new research shows that in the Petri dish the bioactive compound found in turmeric (curcumin) and the bioactive compound found in black pepper (piperine) — when combined — are a potent anti-cancer combination – especially against breast cancer stem cells – the cells that conventional treatment (chemotherapy and radiation) have the hardest time eliminating.

Accordingly, Dr. Servan-Schreiber says in his blog: “…given that turmeric and pepper, taken as part of a normal diet, are practically never toxic in any way, it seems to me to be perfectly reasonable to recommend that all of us regularly consume a soupspoon of turmeric every day, with a pinch of pepper.”

But he adds: “CAUTION: Note that it is often safest to avoid turmeric during chemotherapy as well as three days before and after the treatment. This is because it can – rarely, but it can – interfere with some chemotherapy treatments and reduce their benefits.”

Turmeric and black pepper — the combo

Think of these two spices as one – because black pepper must be present in the food for turmeric to be fully assimilated by the body. “Pepper multiplies the body’s absorption of turmeric by two thousand.” (Anti-Cancer by David-Servan Schreiber, p. 104)  So…“To be assimilated by the body, turmeric must be mixed with black pepper (not simply peppers). Ideally, if must also be dissolved in oil (olive, canola, or linseed oil, preferably).” (Anti-Cancer, p. 120)

For more information about turmeric and it’s healthful properties (and some cautions)….

• Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s website – Integrative Medicine, Herbs. Here you will find all the details and background research on turmeric!
• NIH National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine

Delicious recipes with dry powdered turmeric or fresh turmeric

Dry powdered turmeric: To find delicious recipes that give you the health benefits of dry powdered turmeric, just go to the search button (upper right hand section of this page) and enter “turmeric.” One of my favorite recipes with turmeric in it is Cilantro Sauce. My family uses this Cilantro Sauce as a dip for veggies and as a condiment along with bean and lentil dishes!

Fresh turmeric: You can find fresh turmeric (the yellow, not the white variety), at Whole Foods and in Asian supermarkets. To learn about fresh turmeric see Cooking with Kurma.

How to store fresh turmeric for use anytime: When I buy fresh turmeric at the Asian market, I buy a lot at once and process it for storage in my freezer. Here’s how:

Peeling turmeric

• Wash the turmeric to get the dirt off.
• Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin off; discard the skin.
• Rinse the peeled turmeric with water.
• Place the peeled and rinsed turmeric into the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Process until the turmeric looks like it’s been grated.

Turmeric after processing in food processor

• Line a rectangular storage container with a layer of parchment paper (and make sure the parchment paper sticks out over the edges of the container) and using a spatula spread just enough of the “grated” turmeric to cover the parchment paper with a thin layer of turmeric.
• Repeat this process: layer of parchment paper; layer of turmeric.

Thin layer of turmeric over parchment paper

• Cover and freeze.
• Remove from freezer and let it defrost on the kitchen counter for a few minutes. Then tug on the top layer of parchment paper that overhangs the sides of the container. This will lift up one frozen layer of turmeric.
• Using your hands (or rubber gloves if you don’t want to get your hands yellow colored), break the layer of frozen turmeric up and place the irregular pieces of frozen turmeric into a plastic bag for the freezer. Store you turmeric in the freezer for future use – anytime! Just remove the amount you need and cook!

Pieces of frozen turmeric in freezer bag

Note: When using fresh turmeric, use at least about twice as much as you would if you were to use dry powdered turmeric, since it is less concentrated and has a milder flavor. And…remember to always add black pepper to your recipe!

P.S. I also store fresh garlic and fresh ginger in the same way! Just peel, process, freeze, and store! Never run out of the healthy foods you need for cooking!

from left: frozen pieces of garlic, turmeric, ginger

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni