【Tianma Fish Head】-- Lower Blood Pressure, Calm the Nerves, and Nourish the Brain
【Ingredients】
15g of Tianma slices, 3g of Chuanxiong, 9g of Poria, 1 fish head (500-1000g), soy sauce, cooking wine, salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate, pepper, garlic, sesame oil, scallion, ginger, water starch, and clear soup as needed.
Remove the scales and gills from the fish head, wash it, and place it in a bowl. Soak the Tianma slices, Chuanxiong slices, and Poria slices in the second wash rice water until soft, then remove and place them in the bowl. Add scallion, garlic, ginger, and an appropriate amount of water to the bowl, then steam in a steamer for about 30 minutes.
After steaming the fish head, remove the scallion, garlic, and ginger. In a separate pot, bring water starch, clear soup, sugar, salt, monosodium glutamate, pepper, and sesame oil to a boil, and thicken the mixture. Pour the sauce over the Tianma fish head and it is ready to serve. Eat once a day.
【Effects】
Suitable for the prevention and treatment of elderly cerebrovascular diseases such as neurasthenia, hypertension, dizziness, numbness in the limbs, and sequelae of stroke. It has the effects of lowering blood pressure, calming the nerves, and nourishing the brain.
Tianma, also known as Chijian, is best when wild-grown in the western mountainous areas of Sichuan. It has a sweet and mild nature and has the effect of soothing the liver and extinguishing wind. It is an important medicine for treating dizziness. It has sedative and calming effects without any toxic side effects. It also contains substances similar to vitamin A and has certain nourishing effects.
【Typical Case】
In the early 1950s, when I was studying traditional Chinese medicine with my uncle, my grandmother, who was in her 70s, suffered from dizziness and blurred vision. After taking general Chinese medicine without any effect, my uncle found a prescription for using Tianma stewed with fish head to treat dizziness in an ancient book. He instructed my grandmother to cook 10g of Tianma with 1 fish head and consume the medicine, fish head, and soup together. After taking this dose, her dizziness greatly reduced, and after three doses, she recovered completely. It is now understood that my grandmother suffered from dizziness caused by hypertension. Tianma can calm the wind and lower blood pressure, and fish meat contains peptides that lower blood pressure, so this prescription is effective for treating hypertension. Since then, whenever patients do not respond well to Western medicine for lowering blood pressure or have unstable blood pressure, they are often instructed to eat Tianma fish head, and the results are usually positive.
Regular consumption of this recipe also has an effect on other cardiovascular diseases. The Inuit people, who primarily consume fish, have the lowest incidence of cardiovascular disease in the world. Adding Tianma, Chuanxiong, and Poria to the fish head recipe would further enhance its effectiveness.
