How to cook Chinese medicine?

Before decocting-

Cleaning

Whether it is necessary to clean Chinese herbal medicines is a question of many people. Although many Chinese herbal pieces look a little gray and black on the surface, they are actually processed before sale, so there is generally no need to clean them before decocting. If you really feel that there is some sediment in the herbs, you can rinse them quickly with water, but don't soak them, so as to avoid the loss of some water-soluble components and the washing away of some fine seeds (such as plantain seeds).

soaking

Chinese herbal medicines cannot be soaked in the cleaning step, but a process of soaking Chinese herbal medicines is needed before decocting.

Soaking the medicinal materials in cold water for about half an hour before decocting can precipitate the water-soluble components in the soup and increase the concentration of the soup. However, it must not be soaked in boiling water, so as to avoid protein in some plant cells being solidified by heating, or some high molecular substances forming colloid, which is not conducive to the precipitation of effective components.

the soaking time should not exceed 1 hour, especially in summer, if the soaking time is too long, it will easily lead to rancidity.

boiling-

using water

the traditional "three bowls of water are boiled into one bowl" is actually not a scientific standard. Because different prescriptions have different tastes and dosage, different herbs have different water absorption. If someone really pours the medicine juice over and over at the same time as the standard of boiling Chinese medicine, it is actually impossible to boil the best Chinese medicine by messing around.

it is better to soak the medicinal materials in water for 2-3cm, or gently press the medicinal materials with your hands until the water just overflows the back of your hand. Instead of mechanically boiling the medicine in 3 bowls of water. Usually, some flowers and plants have a large water absorption capacity, and the water level drops after soaking for half an hour. You can add cold water to the standard water level and then start decocting.

heat

in general, traditional Chinese medicine should use strong fire first, then boil it and change it to slow fire. The significance of controlling the heat is that if the heat is too strong, the water will evaporate too quickly, which will affect the precipitation of effective components and make it easy to burn.

However, some traditional Chinese medicines for treating exogenous diseases can continue to be decocted with strong fire for about 15 minutes without slow fire after boiling. Time

The decocting time of traditional Chinese medicines should be determined according to the nature of different drugs and diseases, the difficulty of dissolving out effective components and the medication situation. After boiling, the time to boil the medicine with slow fire is generally 2-25 minutes for the first decoction and 15-2 minutes for the second decoction; Traditional Chinese medicines for relieving exterior syndrome are decocted for 1-15 minutes first and for 1 minutes second; Nourishing Chinese medicine, the first decoction should be 3-4 minutes, the second decoction should be 25-3 minutes.

If the "big head shrimp" is boiled for too long, so that the medicinal soup is too thick, you can add some boiled water and boil it, so as to avoid the problem of reverse osmosis of the effective components.

Re-decocting

Many elderly people are used to "re-decocting" a pair of traditional Chinese medicines for three or four times. Generally speaking, the effective components in a pair of traditional Chinese medicines have been greatly reduced after being decocted twice, so it is better to decoct twice. But nourishing Chinese medicine can be decocted three times. And some prescriptions with large dosage can also be decocted for three times.

however, it should be noted that if the first decoction and the second decoction are taken separately, the efficacy will not be brought into full play. The first decoction and the second decoction should be mixed and taken twice in the morning and evening. Similarly, the liquid medicine decocted three times is taken three times a day accordingly.

after decoction-

immediately filter the decoction.

After decoction, filter and pour it out while it is hot. It is not advisable to put it in the pot for a long time. Otherwise, the liquid containing too much colloid will gel with the decrease of temperature, which is difficult to filter, which will affect the efficacy and easily lead to rancidity.

Boilers-

Pot and casserole are the best

The best boilers are of course traditional pots, casserole, enamel and stainless steel, but aluminum pot, iron pot and copper pot should not be used, so as to prevent these active metal utensils from reacting with drugs, affecting the curative effect of drugs and even causing harm to human body.

Traditional earthenware pots, crocks and ceramics do not react chemically with various traditional Chinese medicine ingredients, and the heat transfer is even and slow, and the quality of the decocted decoction is good. Stainless steel is a passive element, and it is not easy to produce chemical reaction. Now, many large hospitals have decoctors made in stainless steel pot. However, the iron frying pan, although it has fast heat transfer, is not only easy to be oxidized, but also unstable in chemical properties. It can form iron tannic acid with tannin, deepen the color of soup, and also form insoluble complexes with flavonoids.