Rushina Munshaw takes me to Thailand. High on Vodka flovoured pickles and Lemon grass coolers .

Rushina Munshaw takes me to Thailand. High on Vodka flovoured pickles and Lemon grass coolers .

Elsie Gabriel.

It is always a pleasure to meet Rushina  the easy going, no fuss and avant -garde chef ! This time she took me to Thailand and I got high on the flavors of Vodka infused pickles and lemon grass coolers! Rushina always parts with that little extra secret about cooking and preservation or alternative ingredients that one can use,here is one...

Educates Rushina, “ Flavoring and infusing vodka is a tradition as old as vodka-drinking itself and requires very  little time and no special equipment. But you do need a little imagination, a grasp of flavours and lots of patience. You just need a good base vodka to start with and quality ingredients to flavour it with. Yes it is as easy as that! Most homemade liqueurs begin with vodka because it is a colorless flavourless spirit that makes it the ideal base for anything. Think of it as a blank canvas for you to paint your flavours onto!”

Cooking with her is always so delightfully simple. You just want to cook! She brings the exotic ingredients to the plate without much fuss and infuses you with a sense of wonder as to how simple cooking can be.

Continues Rushina on the vodka trail, “There are two ways to add flavour to Vodka: either mix flavoured extracts into it, or add the flavouring ingredients in their raw form and allow them to steep in the alcohol for a while. Using extracts is faster and in some cases better but more often than not, the best results come with slow infusion.”

I came away making Thai Green curry with Vegetables where I learned to make the Green curry paste from a scratch….and Chicken Phad Kaphro Thai where Basil leaves did a dance on my taste buds……..all with such ease and finesse I could pat myself on the back for having attended her trip to Thailand and back.
Meeting Supakan who represents the ever so slim Thai woman was insightful,she is soft spoken welcoming and graceful. Much to the surprise of many you have to know that Thai men and women eat fresh vegetarian diets which are equally exotic and sensuous,no wonder they are all so youthful,slim,clear complexioned and beautiful!

Rushina always draws you into the cooking with experiment zone, “Don’t worry too much about quantities, infusing vodka is not an exact science - the variety and quantity of flavouring you choose is up to you and if flavours get too overwhelming, they simply need to be diluted with more of the base liquor.”
Thai dishes artfully balance the sensations of hot, bitter, mild, sweet and sour from ingredients that are specific to Southeast Asia and neighboring India. The scent of Thai herbs, sweet basil, coriander, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, and Galanga which is Thai ginger, combine to create a therapeutic aroma that permeates the senses.

So I was high on the vodka and the Thai spices. The Galangal and Lemon grass both are a gourmets harem of ingredients, the absolute essentials of Thai cooking.
I believe you taste the difference in every dish lemon grass serves, the lemonade fused with lemon grass herb and the Green curry with crushed lemon bulbous roots or the lemon grass in the curries all play their part to send you to Thailand for sheer gastronomical pleasure.