Austin is pretty much an oven these days. My appetite decreases, but oddly enough I crave spicy foods. Really spicy. Not your average Tex-Mex spicy, but more like habanero level heat. I just realized that I eat something spicy with every each meal I ate. I add a few spoonfuls of my Fiery Jalapeño Salsa to my scrambled eggs for breakfast, a few drops of Sriracha or chili oil to my lunch and then when dinner comes I add a jalapeño or chili to whatever salad we're having. It's pretty crazy if you ask me.

Have you ever wondered why cultures from hotter climates eat really hot food? Just think about traditional Latin American, Indian, African and Southeast Asian food. We love our favorite Ethiopian, Mexican and Indian restaurants for how hot and spicy their dishes are. There is something about spicy food that makes you feel good.

In my opinion it only gets better during the hot summer days. I mean, come on, if you are already sweating, at least do it with a purpose. Spicy food cools you down. Yes it will first make your forehead sweat, but soon after you'll feel a lot better. This is not something that I made up, it's science, bitch, to quote Jesse Pinkman. The scientific term is called gustatory hyperhidrosis also known as gustatory sweating. What happens when eating spicy food is that your internal temperature goes up trying to match the outside temperature. Your blood circulation increases and then you start sweating. Sweat helps the body cool down by producing fluid that evaporates from our skin. If you've ever used a sauna, the effect is similar although the process is different.

I was inspired to make this salad by Roni's latest trip to Thailand and Bhutan. While she was gone, I annoyed her daily with texts asking for pictures of the food she was eating there. This green papaya salad, called Som Tum in Thai, is one of the most common salads that you can find in Thailand. It is a sweet, sour and spicy delight made fresh to order. One suggestion for eating in Thailand is to specify how many chilies to put in your dish at the time of ordering. This rule applies not only to this salad, but to every dish that you eat in Thailand. The level of heat they're accustomed to may be unbearable to us farang (“westerner” in Thai).

The ingredients for this salad can be found at any Asian store. You can even add dried shrimp to make it more authentic. Although I like the taste and texture of dried shrimps, I found that it's not everyone's cup of tea. I usually add 8-10 thai chilies to this dish and the level of heat is higher than the average, but not too crazy. I had a few of my friends over for dinner last week and I served this salad as an appetizer without any major incidents. To cut the heat, just add more tomatoes, lime and if you don't like your salad too sour, a bit more sugar too. Enjoy!

Green Papaya Salad (Som Tum)

Serves 4-6
Prep time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

5-10 Thai chilies, roughly chopped (depending how spicy you like it)
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 TBS palm sugar (or brown sugar)
1 TBS fish sauce (replace with seaweed sauce if vegetarian/vegan)
2 limes, juiced
2 tomatoes, quartered
1/4 cup roasted peanuts
1 green papaya, shredded
1/2 cabbage, shredded
1 cup green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces - optional
1/4 cup roasted peanuts
salt or soy sauce, to taste

Instructions

In a mortar combine chilies and garlic. Smash them with the wooden pestle until they release the flavor and the oils, about 2-3 minutes. Add sugar and pound until it dissolves into the chili and garlic mix. Add the fish sauce next. Use a spoon (or spatula) in conjunction with the pestle to push the mixture stuck to the sides of the mortar down.
Squeeze lime wedges and add tomatoes, a handful of peanuts and pound more with the pestle while pushing down the ingredients stuck to the sides of the mortar with the spatula, about 1-2 minutes. I toss a few whole lime wedges in the mortar and only discard them when eating the salad, too.
Taste and adjust sweetness and sourness, by adding more lime juice or palm sugar.
In a large mixing bowl, combine papaya and cabbage. Pour the chili concoction from the mortar over the salad and mix well until it is evenly coated. Sprinkle with the rest of the peanuts and serve cold.

NOTES

If using a food processor, combine chilies and garlic and pulse for a few times. Add the rest of the ingredients (do not leave the lime wedges in when using the food processor) and give it a few more pulses. Remember, you want a paste with some texture and not completely smooth, so don't overdo it.
Most Asian stores carry pre-shredded green papaya. If you can't find that shred it yourself by using a julienne peeler. You can also grate the papaya on a box grater, although I like the papaya crunchier. Alternatively, you can use the traditional way of shredding, but I recommend that you watch a video before as it requires above average knife skills. Stop grating/shredding when you get close to the center. Those white immature seeds are not pleasant to taste.
I prefer consuming this salad fresh so that the papaya and cabbage don't lose their crunchiness, but it stays good for a couple of days in the refrigerator.

Sunshine has finally arrived to Texas! I am so happy to be leaving the rainy month of May behind and enjoy everything that typical hot Austin summers have to offer: sunbathing in Zilker Park, dipping in the cold and refreshing Barton Springs, weekend getaways to Hamilton Pool and the Hill Country, Blues on the Green, and paddle boarding on Town Lake. As great as all of these may sound, I know that by September I'll be fed up with the heat, but until then I want to live the summer to its fullest.

Summer in terms of food should be about light and refreshing dishes and this delicious sour cherry soup is one them. It may sound odd at first as it's not that common anywhere aside from Hungary, but I promise that its tart taste and creamy texture will blow your socks off.

In my Zserbó Cake post I mentioned that my grandparents, Tatus and Iolika, had an amazing orchard in their backyard with an impressive number of cherry trees. During the hot summer days my grandma would always make us- my cousins, my sister and I- huge pots of cold soups. Cold fruit soups were our favorite type. She would alternate the sour cherries with pears, quince or currants so we wouldn't get bored of the same taste.

In Hungary this soup is called meggyleves and it's served mostly during the hot summer months, but it's not unheard of it to be served warm during the colder months of the year. I prefer it cold. You can taste it before it cools down and decide which one you like better. Making this soup is very easy as it requires little effort. As kids, our contribution to this soup was to pick, wash and then pit the cherries. We hated doing this because we had to pit buckets full of cherries for not only the soup but also for preserves and compote. Fortunately nowadays it's easy to find pitted sour cherries so the dirty work has been taken care of for you by machines.

I'm not sure in which category to put this summer delicacy, because in Hungary we'd eat it either for lunch or dinner, before or after the main dish. Is there a thing called appetizer-dessert? If not I’m coining the term. Enjoy!

Chilled Sour Cherry Soup

Serves 8-10
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

2 jars sour cherries in syrup (12 oz each) (or 2 lbs. fresh or frozen pitted sour cherries and 3 cups cherry juice)
1/2 lemon, peeled
7 cups water
5 TSB sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
6 whole cloves
1 stick cinnamon
4 cardamom pods
1 star anise
1 two-inch vanilla bean pod (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
1.4 oz vanilla pudding powder
1 tsp starch (potato or arrowroot)
8 oz heavy cream (or sour cream)
1/2 cup roasted slivered almonds
6 fresh mint leaves, chopped

Instructions

In a large sauce pan combine cherry syrup from the jars (or 3 cups juice), water, lemon peel, sugar, salt, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, anise and vanilla.
If using fresh cherries you should add them as well. If using jarred or frozen sour cherries, hold off on putting them in for a bit. Usually the jarred ones are already cooked in syrup, so if you boil them now they'll be mushy by time the soup is ready. Same for the frozen cherries- they are usually blanched.
Bring sauce pan to a boil over medium high heat. Stir and boil for about 15 minutes for the spices to become fragrant. You should be able to smell the cinnamon, cloves and anise if you leaned over the pan.
While the spiced mixture is boiling, combine vanilla pudding powder and starch in a small mixing bowl. Slowly pour the cream of your choice and whisk vigorously for about 3 minutes. Make sure there aren't any lumps in the mixture.
Remove spices (cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and star anise) and lemon peel from the sauce pan using a sieve and discard them. Reduce the heat to medium. Taste the soup and adjust sweetness. If you follow the recipe the soup will be on the tart side, but if you prefer it sweeter you can add more sugar. You can make it even more tart by adding freshly squeezed lemon juice.
Temper the dairy mixture by transferring one ladle at a time of the hot soup from the sauce pan into the mixing bowl. You want to slowly raise the temperature of the cream, otherwise it will curdle when added to the hot soup. Once tempered, pour the dairy mixture into the pot and stir to combine.
If using jarred or frozen cherries now is the time to add them to the soup. Stir and cook until the soup becomes thick and creamy, about 5-6 minutes.
Increase the heat to medium-high, bring the soup to a boil and remove the pan from the heat. You're done!
Chill the soup for about an hour in the refrigerator. Sprinkle almonds and mint right before serving.

NOTES

To get the vanilla beans out of the pods split the pod in half lengthwise then scrape the beans out of the pod halves with the back of your knife using firm pressure.
If the soup ends up lumpy or the dairy curdled, remove the sour cherries from the soup and set them aside. Using an immersion blender mix the soup until the lumps are gone. Put the cherries back in the soup.