Cook with cannabis

The first thing you have to know when cooking with marihuana is that THC does not dissolve in water, but it does dissolve in oils, fats, and alcohol. This piece of wisdom has been known for thousands of years, since the first hasheating cultures of for example, India.

Maybe you have heard the stories of people who have tried to make a tea out of a marihuana bud. Some wait for hours and hours, without any high resulting from its consumption. In that case the THC has not (or barely) dissolved in the tea water. In other cases the person does get stoned from the marihuana tea. But that is only because the buds obviously had so many THC molecules in them that they were simply driven in to the water, and so it was these suspended molecules that the user had imbibed. But this last example has nothing to do with making any kind of tea.

One other lesson is that it makes verify little sense to make huge amounts of food if getting stoned is the primary goal. The more you eat, the more difficult it is for the THC to get into the blood stream, because it has to find its way out of the stomach through all the other food that has been consumed. That is not something that is insurmountable; the stonedness will come eventually. But a drawback is that the body evacuates a large part of the THC along with a large plate of pasta. That is a shame, because then you have paid for cannabis that in actual fact you have not actual used.

One other reason why we should not eat too much in combination with marihuana is that, particularly for people with a sensitive stomach, such a combination can quickly develop symptoms of queasiness. Warning! Make sure that the ganja that you use remains in an air-tight package, right up to the moment that you are about to use it. Letting your buds lie around too long in a kitchen unit will result in a loss of the active force.

One other question that perhaps you are about to ask yourself is whether cannabis sativa still works when it has been baked? Well now, in principle the answer that the active force of ganja declines as soon as it is burnt. We will be taking account of this in the recipes. Mostly we are talking about toasting the buds, whereby the effect remains intact.

Below is a short list of the products that can be made at home, that can be used as substitutes for the traditional starting ingredients.

Cannabis butter

Cannabis butter, also known as Ghee, is a product that is used in many marihuana-tinted meals. You can see it as a basic starting ingredient. That is why it is described here apart from the regular recipes.

Where to get it? – In the Netherlands, Cannabis butter or Ghee can be bought at some coffee shops. This is certainly not the case in the UK and besides, it is much more fun to make your own anyway!

Preparation instructions: Heat 2 pounds of real dairy butter in a pan on a low flame. Just until the little white flakes start to float to the top. This white top layer is skimmed off with a spoon. You continue this process until there is only pure oil left behind. This you then pour into a jar that can be sealed, and then placed in your fridge. The next step is put the Ghee in a pan again the next day, on a low temperature, and stir into it well-sieved marihuana buds. Add a little vodka and salt to it. Keep stirring until the butter takes on the green colour of the cannabis. Then pour this warm stuff through a sieve and pour it into a jar so that the pure cannabis butter is separated from the twigs, leaves and the bud remains. Put the green butter in the fridge.

You can also do this whole process with a sieved, or finely-crumbled hash. That is also much easier, because you don’t end up with all those twigs, and the hash dissolves much more easily in the butter.

Cannabis brandy

Because cannabis dissolves so well in alcohol it is an excellent idea to begin our master class with the making of an alcoholic pick-me-up, spiced up with the necessary THC. This is something you can drink pure. But we mostly use the brandy to add some pep to other dishes.

Preparation instructions – It is actually pretty easy to make canna-brandy. Take a bowl or Tupperware tub that can be sealed and toss in all the marihuana leftovers you have at home. Add to this enough decent rum, vodka, or brandy to cover it. Leave the cannabis leftovers for a few weeks in the alcoholic drink.

After this you put the jar or tub au bain marie in a large metal pan stood on the gas with boiling-to-almost-boiling water in the bottom. Warm the tub for around 45 minutes.

Take a sieve in which you have placed the old trimmings of cannabis. Pour the warmed alcoholic brandy through this sieve and in to another tub or bowl. Repeat this process until the booze is so full of marihuana herbs, that a small swig is already enough for a one way ticket to fairytale land. Then just pour this enriched drink in to a tightly sealable bottle. You can also, should you wish, also add a few drops of hash oil to give the potion that extra aromatic effect.

Shake the bottle well before you use any of the contents. The active ingredients will tend to settle at the bottom. Should clumps start to settle out after the liquid has been stored for a long time, simply warm up the cannabis brandy again au bain marie. Then add a bit of extra brandy to it.

Because large meals work against the effects of THC, here we will be offering mostly small recipes, ones that combine pleasure for the taste buds and spiritenriching effects with each other.

Instant hash bhang

A popular Indian drink.

Preparation instructions: Put a couple of knobs of hash butter in a pan along with two tea cups of boiling water. Add to this 1 gram of crumbled hash and let the mixture boil for a minute. Fill two tall mugs 1/3 full with milk. Pour the same quantity of the hash-butter water through a sieve in to the mug, and leave any residue behind in the sieve. Add to each mug 1 dessertspoon of honey, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Stir well, then sit back and enjoy!!

Majoon marihuana jam

Majoon is a type of jam that is widely eaten in India. People there eat it on crackers or on toast.

Preparation instructions – Take a baking pan and scatter a quarter of a gram of nicely sorted marihuana buds in to it, then roast them until they are good and brown. Now get a bowl and toss the buds in. Add a number of dates, a half cup of sultanas, a half cup of shelled walnuts, and a teaspoon each of ground nutmeg and aniseed. Then to finish off, add a dessertspoon of honey. Stir the whole thing until you have a mush.

Add half a drinking glass of water, then boil this mixture in a small pan until the ingredients have become soft and mixed in with each other. While the product is still hot, add a further two dessert spoons of melted butter to it and beat this in to the jam. Then put the jam into a glass jar with a firm lid on it, and save this in the fridge. Your Sunday morning toast will never be the same again!

Hamentashen

This is a different jam. But this is made from hash. You can consume it in the same way as the majoon jam, with crackers or toast. Majoon and Hamentashen are in fact the same products as the famous ‘green paste’ that was eaten by the members of the Club des Hashischins, and enjoyed at the end of the 19th Century by the likes of writers Rimbaud and Baudelaire.

Preparation instructions: Mix in a bowl with a wooden masher two cups of dried plums (prunes), a half cup of almonds, 1 dessert spoon of lemon juice, half top 1 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon and a quarter gram of hash. That is the whole procedure. Accordingly, put the jam in a pot and keep it cool.

White Marrakesh cookies

Mix with a spatula 1 cup of warm cannabis butter and a half cup of honey. Add an egg to it, plus two dessert spoons of vanilla powder. Add a very small handful of orange zest.

Next you add three cups of flour mixed with 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Stir these ingredients until you have a good dough in your hands.

Let the dough cool in the fridge for an hour so that it becomes stiff. Take out the dough and roll it out with a rolling pin or bottle, so that it is approximately 1 centimetre thick. Then cut the cookie shapes out of the dough, but do not let any one piece be more than 5 centimetres wide or long. You can use a drinking glass for this, pressing its rim into the dough, if you have not got a cookie cutter in your kitchen.

Place the cookies on a baking tray or on a grill shelf with aluminium foil and press a single almond in to the centre of each cookie. Bake this tray in a pre-heated oven at 190 degrees Celsius for 6 to 8 minutes. Let them cool, and get your dunking hand ready!

Mexican dip sauce

Mix with a masher 3 dessert spoons of wine vinegar, 2 teaspoons chilli powder and half a cup full of pulverised marihuana buds thoroughly. Let this half-product stand for an hour. Then add three ripe avocados and two diced onions. Mix all these ingredients together until the avocado is mixed with all the other materials. Serve this as a dip sauce with taco chips.

You can also vary this recipe by omitting the wine vinegar, and lightly roasting the marihuana in a baking tray together with a half cup of olive oil. After that you add this to the avocado, the onions and the chilli powder. Adding a splash of lemon juice will add a bit of zing to the mixture. In this last variation the effects of the THC are greater than in the first case.

Cannabis milk shake

Combine a half gram of finely chopped marihuana buds with a half drinking glass of milk and half a drinking glass of single cream.

Add to this a half teaspoon of white castor sugar. Mix the whole lot in a blender for two minutes.

Next pour the contents of the blender in to a pan and warm the drink on a low flame for ten minutes. Make sure there is no skin on the surface, and skim this off if it does form.

Then add a few spoons of honey to the mix in the pan. Pour the drink back in to the blender, and add half a teaspoon of vanilla powder to it. Turn off the blender, and pour the mixture into the fridge and leave until ice cold.

When you come to drinking the milkshake, turn the blender back on and give the mix a good frothy whiz. Serve with a straw!

How do I make an ice cream out of the mixture?

Well now, add a raw egg to the milkshake, and beat the mixture well. Put this in a suitable mould, such as a Tupperware tub, or an old ice cream tub. Put the lid on firmly and put it in the freezer compartment. Do not let the tub sit for too long in the freezer, because then the ice will crystallize too much! But do serve the ice cream ice cold!

Crème de gras

To make a really delicious marihuana liqueur, you need a bit of patience. A real distillation process takes place that will be described here.

Preparation instructions – Put the contents of a 2-gram pack of marihuana in a quarter litre bottle. You can use an old, well-cleaned gin bottle or something along those lines. Add to this heated vodka, and a similar quantity of water, so that the bottle is filled up. Keep this bottle at room temperature for five days. Take a look every so often to check that the buds are not floating to the top too much. After this period you sieve the buds and twigs out. The residue you use to add to a new bottle of heated vodka. Sieve this one too after five days and add the sieved liquid to the mixture from the first bottle. Let the residue steep for another five days in a quarter of a litre of pure water.

On the fifth day, heat the bottle au bain marie in a pan with water for 45 minutes. Do not screw the top on the bottle too hard, as if you do you can run the risk of an explosion.

After this you sieve the warmed marihuana water off, and add this to the already sieved alcoholic drink. Filter this half and half product through a coffee filter. Repeat this step several times so that you end up with a clear liquid. Should there be any gunk left behind in the filtered liqueur, leave the bottle to stand for a few days, so that the sediment sinks to the bottom of the bottle.

The clean filtered drink is poured in to a bottle on to which the top is carefully screwed and placed back in the hot water pan and warmed for a further 15 minutes. Add with a thin spoon several dessert spoons of honey to the bottle. Tighten the bottle top well, and shake well so that the honey dissolves in the liqueur.

The eventual product is transferred into an elongated liqueur bottle. The longer and thinner the bottle, the better it is for letting the sediment settle. Finally, you leave the bottle to stand for a few months.

After this period of time, pour the contents of the bottle once more through a coffee filter so that any newly—formed sediment is also removed. Label the bottle appropriately, such as your own crème de gras. On consuming it, you will find after two glasses that you’re hit by a high experience the likes of which you have never had before!

Turkish cuppa

As a rule of thumb, coffee reduces the intoxicating effect of THC, and strengthens its energy-giving qualities.

Preparation instructions: Make a good pot of coffee in the classic filter method.

Use a Turkish coffee boiler into which you add for each cup of coffee a teaspoon of Arabian mokka powder. If you are not acquainted with such a coffee boiler or with mokka, go take a look in any Turkish spice shop, such as you will find in most large towns. Purchasing one should not set you back too much.

Add to this a dash of cardamom seeds, which you can also get hold of in Moroccan or Turkish grocers shops. Then add to this a half gram of hash per cup.

Next pour the freshly made coffee over the mokka powder and the cardamom seeds in the boiler. Heat the Turkish boiler over a soft flame on the stove top, until the moment that it threatens to boil. At that moment remove it immediately from the stove.

Serve the Turkish cuppa in an espresso cup, complete with tiny spoon. You can add a small spoonful of honey too.

With or without hash, this is the way to make proper Turkish coffee.

Then just sip away at the coffee, and use your small spoon to bring the mokka, the cardamom and the honing to the surface. Your enjoyment can begin!

*This article has drawn heavily from the standard work Cooking with Cannabis by Adam Gottlieb.