Jenn and I happened into a microbrewery in Athens the other day. Craft Brewery makes a light smoked beer which has an aftertaste that is just like smoked gouda. It was weird yet awesome; we would have been in danger of drinking too much if they cost less than 6 euro ($8) each. We got on a train directly after the bar so I had 12 hours to ponder over how to smoke a beverage. My solution: a modified water pipe (basically a hookah) replacing the tobacco with some sort of wood chips. Though I couldn't see any way of pulling the smoke through without bringing oxygen and thereby oxidizing the ethanol. Turns out that smoked beer is made by smoking the malts before fermentation. Probably a bit extravagant for me, but there are quite a few breweries in the states that do it - though they seem to prefer making porters.
I think I will try the method I envisioned though. I have about 3 gallons of (awful) apple wine that may taste okay as smoked apple vinegar. And how about some smoked soy milk or yogurt? Sounds a bit gross, but I bet that's what they said about the gouda.
We search everyday for somewhere to eat our favorite Thai dish - som tam, also known as spicy papaya salad. We are addicted to it's delicious spicy, sweet, sour and salty flavor.
One of the things I've missed while traveling is a kitchen to work in. To help with the withdrawals and to learn how to whip up our favorite dish, we took a cooking class at Thai Farm Cooking school. The fabulous class was held at their organic farm outside of Chiang Mai. We even took a little video for those of you interested in bringing a taste of the orient into your kitchen.
For those of you who don't have 8 minutes of your life to waste on this video - here's the recipe:
How to Make Som Tom
Ingredients:
1 cup shredded green papaya (Peel the papaya and rinse under running water. Remove the seeds and shred the flesh with a grater).
3-4 Thai hot chilis
2-3 peeled cloves of garlic
1/2 lime
2 tsp sugar (we used palm syrup in class)
1/3 cup of fresh chopped green beans
1 tomato cut in 6 pieces
2 tbsp peanuts
1 tbsp fish sauce (can sub soy sauce)
1/4 tsp salt
Green papaya can be replaced with cucumber, cabbage, carrot or granny smith apple.
Put garlic and chillies into a mortar and mash with a pestle until crushed (or you can use a food processor). Add lime, sugar, peanuts, fish sauce, tomato, green beans and salt - mix together. Finally add shredded papaya and mix together well with pestle and spoon. Serve cold with fresh cabbage, lettuce or morning glory. Eat with sticky rice.
If you'd like more recipes - send me an email or leave a comment and I'll send them your way. I was really happy to find out making pad thai and curries are a snap!
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