First published 31 May 2009 · revised and expanded 30 October 2026.

A big pot of farmers-market spring: young onions, white turnips and their greens, asparagus, all simmered in milk. Makes you feel terrific.

All ingredients are organic, and most are from the Farmer’s Market. It serves 8, and it is perfect for the late spring (Vasanta) melting period.

Serves
8
Season
late spring (Vasanta)
Pot
1 big soup or stock pot
Tastes
all six, approximately

What you need

Batchserves 8

To begin

  • 3 tbspghee
  • 8young onions
  • 2 tbspblack pepper
  • 2 tspblack salt

Turnips and milk

  • 4 large or 8 mediumwhite turnips greens removed and saved
  • ½ gallonmilk
  • 1 poundasparagus

To finish

  • 2 tspdried sage
  • 4 tspdried dill
  • 4 tbsppine nuts
  • 3 cupspotato flakes

Method

  1. 1 Caramelize the onions

    Slice the onions thinly and caramelize them in the ghee, salt, and pepper for 5 minutes. Then reduce the heat.

  2. 2 Add the turnips and milk

    Slice the turnips into thin rectangular cubes. Add to the caramelized mixture. Stir 3 minutes. Add all of the milk. Stir while saying mantra. Turn the heat to medium.

  3. 3 Add the greens

    Chop the turnip greens into small strips and add them to the pot. Allow the milk mixture to bubble. (It may take a while.)

  4. 4 Add the asparagus

    After breaking the ends off, chop the asparagus into 1-inch sections. Add to the pot.

  5. 5 Finish and serve

    Add all four: the sage, dill, pine nuts and potato flakes. With the soup simmering, add the flakes, and stir again well. Serve when all the vegetables are cooked through.

Makes you feel terrific.

The six tastes (approximately)

  • Madhura

    Sweet

    earth + water

    ghee, milk, pine nuts, sage

  • Amla

    Sour

    earth + fire

    asparagus, black pepper

  • Lavaṇa

    Salty

    water + fire

    salt

  • Tikta

    Bitter

    space + air

    turnip greens, turnips

  • Kaṭu

    Pungent

    fire + air

    black pepper, onions

  • Kaṣāya

    Astringent

    earth + air

    asparagus, turnips, dill, potatoes

Spring and the pot

Quoted from my translation of Vāgbhaṭa’s Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayam.1

The melting season

For kapha, accumulated in śiśira, when heated by the sun’s rays in vasanta (spring) destroys the digestive fire and causes diseases; therefore, one should quickly conquer it with sharp emetics, nasya (nasal administration) and other therapies, and with light and dry foods.

Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayam, Sū. 3.18–19

A correction. The 2009 text called this the “late spring (Hemant) melting period.” Hemanta is early winter; the season in which kapha melts is Vasanta, spring, as in the verse above. The page now says Vasanta.

For the spring table Vāgbhaṭa recommends “the last three” tastes (Sū. 3.56), which in his order are bitter, pungent and astringent. That is where most of this soup’s list falls: pepper and onions, turnips and their greens, asparagus, dill and potato. The milk and ghee are the comfort, and here Vāgbhaṭa would be stricter: in spring “one should avoid heavy, cold, daytime sleep, unctuous, sour, and sweet substances” (Sū. 3.26), and food should be dry (Sū. 3.56).

Milk, bubbling

Uncooked milk (payo) is abhiṣyandi (obstructive) and guru (heavy), but when properly boiled (yuktyā śṛtam), it is otherwise (not obstructive and light).

Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayam, Sū. 5.28

“Allow milk mixture to bubble. (It may take a while.)” is good classical practice.

Greens, sour things and milk. Vāgbhaṭa warns that “all sour substances are incompatible with milk” (Sū. 7.31), and “having eaten haritaka (green vegetables) such as radish, one should avoid milk” (Sū. 7.32). This soup has turnip greens, and the six-taste list counts the asparagus as sour. Hemādri reads haritaka broadly, as every vegetable from radish onward in the vegetable chapter. Aruṇadatta is more lenient on both counts. The rule on greens does not mean “that one should not consume milk after eating cooked radish and other vegetables that have been made unctuous and steamed by the process of cooking vegetables.” And when milk is cooked with a sour substance into a vegetable dish (kṣīraśāka), “there is no incompatibility because it becomes a different substance.” This soup, simmered with ghee, is that kind of dish.

Pepper, black salt, onion

Two tablespoons of black pepper is a generous hand, and it suits the season: pepper “alleviates kapha, and is light” (Sū. 6.161). Black salt (sauvarcala) “is light, cardiac tonic, fragrant, and purifies eructations,” with “a pungent pāka (post-digestive taste)” that “removes obstructions, stimulates digestion, and promotes taste” (Sū. 6.145–146). The onion is gentler: it “has fewer qualities than garlic, increases kapha, and does not excessively increase pitta” (Sū. 6.112).

The potato flakes, which thicken the soup, come from a plant of the Americas, unknown to the classical texts.

Curious about another ingredient? Ask Vāgbhaṭa answers from the same translation, with the verses quoted.

Sources

  1. Vāgbhaṭa, Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayam, in Vāgbhaṭa’s Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayam: A Full English Translation, tr. Renay Oshop (2026) with Aruṇadatta’s Sarvāṅgasundarā and Hemādri’s Āyurvedarasāyana. Loci quoted: Sūtrasthāna 3.18–19, 3.26, 3.56; 5.28; 6.112, 6.145–146, 6.161; 7.31–32 (with Aruṇadatta and Hemādri). Paperback pp. 7, 9, 13, 23, 25–26, 32 (root text); commentaries quoted from the Kindle edition. In short quotations the translation’s parenthetical glosses are sometimes omitted.

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