Sukku Kaapi / Sukku Paal

This is a special recipe of my grandmother. She used to drink this everyday since her childhood. She believes that this is the secret for her good health. 

Ingredients:

For Decotion:
Black pepper - 5
Cumin seed - 1/4 tsp
Cardamom - 1
Coriander powder - 1/4 tsp
Grated Ginger/ dry ginger powder - 1/4 tsp
Karuppatti (Palm jaggery) - 1.5 tbsp
Naatu sarkarai (Brown sugar) - 1 tsp
Water - 1/2 cup

For Finishing:
Warm milk / water - 3/4 cup

Method:

1 - Crush black pepper, cardamom and cumin seed.

2 - Grate the palm jaggery.

Karupatti or panavellam

3 - In a sauce pan warm water, add crushed pepper, cumin seed, cardamom, coriander powder, grated ginger, palm sugar and brown sugar

4 - Bring it to boil.

5 -Strain the boiled decotion.

Sukku Kaapi without Milk

6 - To the extracted decotion, you can either add warm water or thick and warm milk.

7 - It is very important that we should never add palm sugar to hot milk. Adding it to hot milk will make the milk curdle.

Sukku Kaapi with milk

Note:

While adding ginger, make sure you remove the skin completely. The white layer under the skin might cause indigestion.
You can also add powdered dry ginger instead of fresh ginger.
In Siddha, it is advised that we should have fresh ginger forenoon and dry ginger post that.

If you are adding milk, then reduce the milk to half and add it to the decotion.

Health Note:

During pregnancy, elders traditionally give this everyday to ease up the pregnancy difficulties, widely practised in Tamilnadu.
Post delivery, it is given to remove impurities from the uterus. 
Jaggery is used since ancient times to treat problems such as dry cough, common cold, anemia and asthma.It is beneficial in treating conditions like indigestion and constipation.
Jaggery helps in promoting relaxation of muscles, nerves and blood vessels, thus enhancing their functions.

Migraines, the most painful and uncomfortable type of headaches can be relieved to a large extent by jaggery.This can be made a healthy substitute to coffee.
This also helps to boost immunity.