Postpartum diet

In most of India, a new mother gets to be under day 40 days of confinement during which she is disallowed from doing any kind of household work and is given a specific diet.

There are lot of postpartum recipes shared by many in the blog world.

Though I don't follow a diet with specific recipes, my diet includes

garlic

shallots

black nightshade berries (milagu thakkali in tamil)

black pepper instead of red/green chillies

split green gram dal instead of toor dal

milk with rusk for snacks

sesame oil in every preparation

In addition to the special diet, I also take two indian medicines/legiyam daily.

One is a wonder medicine for lactation called sadavari/shatavari legiyam. It can be had twice a day daily till you wean the kid. It tastes just like jaggery. I got to know about this from my very favorite siddha doctor  Dr. Sivaraman.

Now the second one is the very popular prasava legiyam, which nowadays is mostly store bought by many families. I got mine from a store, as none in my family remembered the recipe. But my hubby's friend gave us a recipe which is handed over from one generation to the other in his family and is a treasured recipe. My mom made it for me and I have a good amla-sized legiyam twice a day.

Here follows that very treasured, age old prasava legiyam recipe.

The ingredients are listed by their tamil names.

Prasava Legiyam Recipe

Table 1
Sukku	200 g
Milagu	200 g
Thippili	100 g
Narukkumoolam	200 g
Arathai	200 g
Kasakasa	100 g
Adhimathuram	25 g
Dhaniya	250 g
Vaayulingam	25 g
Sirunaagappoo	50 g

Table 2
Omam	200 g

Table 3
Kadukkaai	1 no.
Jaathikkai (Nutmeg)	1 no.
Maasikkai	1 no.
Ginger	1 kg

Table 4
Akkara	2 no.
Jaathipathiri	2 no.
Elaichi	4 no.
Cloves	5 g

Preparing the powder

In a hot kadai, dry roast Table 1 ingredients one by one, just until they become hot to touch and reserve.
Dry roast Table 2 ingredient quite nicely.
Peel and thinly slice 1 kg of Ginger and dry it well in shade. This step can be done few days before starting the rest of the preparation.
Roast Table 3 ingredients (including the ginger pieces) in ghee and reserve.
Once all the ingredients come to room temperature, get them all (Table 1, 2. 3 and 4) ground to a fine powder in a mill.
Cool the ground powder by spreading on a clean paper and store it.

Preparing the legiyam
The prepared powder - 1 cup
Palm jaggery - 1 cup
Honey - 1 tbsp
Ghee
Sesame oil

Add water to palm jaggery, heat until it dissolves, strain and reserve.
Add water to the powder and make a thick paste.
Heat Kadai and add honey and then the palm jaggery syrup. Let it boil,
Now add the powder paste and keep stirring.
Add ghee and sesame oil and keep stirring until it comes to a non-sticky halwa like consistency.

It keeps well for a month in the refrigerator and can be made as and when required from the stored powder.