JAMU – An Ancient Elixir from Bali, Indonesia

What is JAMU?

It's #FaceFoodFriday and today we are sharing an ancient Indonesian herbal elixir, Jamu, with you.  Jamu has been said to promote inner health and beauty (beauty from the inside out) and it is made from ingredients that we love and use frequently in our recipes.  We discovered this while watching the new season of the critically acclaimed Netflix series – Chef’s Table.  In this episode former NYC pastry chef, Will Goldfarb, leaves the hustle and bustle of Manhattan for a rustic life in Bali where the cooking embraces the use of exotic herbs not only for flavor but for promoting healing as well.  This recipe is 1300 years old and has stood the test of time.

It is an easy recipe to make and we enjoy drinking it first thing in the morning.  We have taken this ancient recipe and made it our own.   Classic Jamu is made with curcumin root (turmeric in root form),  ginger root, water, raw honey, and lime juice.  We added apple cider vinegar and lemon juice to our recipe.  It takes 20 minutes to make and can be kept in the fridge for up to a week.  Make it for yourself and let us know what you think!

How to Make JAMU

Ingredients

• ½ cup of curcumin roughly chopped
• 1 2 inch piece of ginger root roughly chopped
• 4 cups of water (preferably filtered – if you don’t have filtered water you can boil tap water and then let it cool – giving you what is essentially filtered water)
• 2 tbsp. Honey
• 2 tbsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
• Juice of one lemon
• Juice of one lime

Directions

• In a high speed blender combine the curcumin, ginger root and ½ cup of water and blitz on high speed until the mixture resembles a fine puree.  Pour into a pot and add the remaining water.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes.  
• Let cool and strain through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. 
• Whisk in the honey, lemon juice, lime juice and apple cider vinegar (we don’t add the honey to a hot liquid as the heat will destroy both the nutritional and healing properties of the honey). 
• Adjust honey to your taste (we like ours a bit tart).

Refrigerate and enjoy!