It's too bad that Washington State law prohibits Seattle chefs from cooking with weed in their restaurants, because people love eating weed, and people also love eating the type of imaginative, indulgent cuisine that one can find only in a good restaurant. Even though it remains illegal for chefs to cut a little infused oil into the aioli they serve at work, it is completely legal for them to do so in the privacy of their own homes. Or, in this case, the home of chef Aleks Dimitrijevic, of La BĂȘte fame.
Five local kitchen professionals gathered in his house on a recent night to experiment with drugsâmaking a variety of dishes and letting me watch how it was done. April Roth, store manager at Uncle Ike's and quite the home cannabis cook herself, helped us select the appropriate productsâa selection of cannabis cooking oils from Ethos Extracts, as well as some good old-fashioned flowerâand the caper was on.
The resulting meal was easily one of the best I've ever experiencedâinfused or otherwise. What's more, that happy, contented glow one should be left with after a good meal was noticeably enhanced by all the pot. In addition to the professionals, I invited over a few hungry friendsâand several members of the tasting panel reported similar postprandial pleasure. One who said he never dreams when he smokes weed said he was treated to a night of weird, memorable, enjoyable sleep cinema that he couldn't stop thinking about the next day. The same panelist added that "licking that chocolate ice cream off that spatula was the happiest moment of my month."
Though I ate a portion of every dish, I did not freak out and have a cosmic identity crisis. I, too, had a deep, weed-induced sleep afterward, and felt well-rested and low-key blissed-out for the entire next day.
Since a restaurant serving elegant weed cuisine is still a pipe dream, you're going to have to make these recipes yourself. Our five generous chefs provided all the instructions you needâincluding estimated per-serving dosages so you don't end up becoming one with the wallpaper like poor Maureen Dowd. Enjoy!
Maggie Berg's Reefer kefir
Starting with breakfast, this is Maggie Berg's delightful take on the age-old "wake and bake"âa probiotic power breakfast for those who function better high. There's a simple way to make kefir infused with weed, and a complicated way. The simple version of this kefir is made with a little bit of activated THC oil, the complicated version with buds cooked in milk to activate them.
Activated THC oil is a good ingredient to have if you want to cook with weed simply, and it's crucial for dishes that won't be heated. Heat is a key part of the chemical reaction that changes a weed molecule's structure from the THC-COOH that naturally occurs in plants into straight-up THC, increasing its polarity and allowing it to cross the blood-brain barrier and get you high. For anything cooked with raw buds, activating the THC is a necessary part of prep. Because of the increase in polarity, THC also becomes more fat soluble as its temperature increases, which is why it's so commonly infused into butter and coconut oil.
In this case, Berg infused whole milk, and the result was quite potent. The simple kefir (which was just homemade kefir with activated THC oil in it) was wonderfully smoothâperfect for pouring over a bowl of granola and fresh berriesâbut her preparation of the complicated kefir was truly a thing of beauty. Berg packed her fermented milk into pre-portioned jars, each with a layer of her delicious pluot compote at the bottom. Each participant got a jar and instructions to "shake well and be cautious." Her home test subject reported that the jarred kefir was a major kick in the ass, and indeed, opening the jar released an aroma as intense as a freshly harvested bud. The flavor of the mixture was perfect, succeeding in every way that mass-market, fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt cups do not.
The Easy Way to Make Reefer KefirIngredients
0.5 ounce kefir grainsâa blend of microbes and yeast that thrive on dairy (Note: They can be tough to track down, as they aren't mass produced but rather grown from a mother colony and shared. You can order them online, says Berg, or join your local "Buy Nothing" Facebook group and ask someone to share a starter with you.)
16 fluid ounces milk
0.5 ounce activated THC oil
honey to taste (optional)
Instructions
Pour everything into a wide mouth jar.
Cover with a clean cloth and secure with a rubber band.
Let sit in a warm place (the cupboard above your stove is perfect) for 24 to 36 hours, depending on ambient temperature.
Stir every 12 hours or so. Once the milk has thickened, strain kefir grains out, put them back into the jar for the next batch.
If desired, use a blender to blend honey into the kefir until you've achieved your desired sweetness.
Yields 16 ounces with about 25 mg of THC.
The "Better" Way to Make Reefer KefirIngredients
0.5 ounce kefir grains
4 fluid ounces milk
0.25 ounce marijuana buds
16 fluid ounces milk
honey to taste (optional)
Instructions
Put the kefir grains and 4 ounces of milk into a jar, cover with a clean cloth, and secure with a rubber band. Set aside.
Put the 16 ounces of milk into a small saucepan, along with the buds, and bring it up to 130 to 160 degrees F. If you don't have a cooking thermometer, get one. Don't let the milk go over 180 degrees. Let it steep for about two hours, checking the temperature every 10 to 15 minutes or so.
Take the pan off the heat, strain out the buds, and put it in the fridge to cool, uncovered, for about five hours or until, you know, it's cold.
Add the infused milk to the jar. Give it a swirl, then replace the cloth and secure.
Follow steps 3 to 5 from above.
Yields 14 ounces with "probably a shitload" of THC in it. Don't eat the whole jar in one sitting.
Pluot CompoteIngredients
1 pound pluots, pitted and chopped into rough chunks
1/4 cup sugar
2 cardamom pods
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
3 allspice
3 cloves
1/2 cup water
Instructions
Put everything into a small pot and bring to a low simmer, cooking until the mixture achieves the consistency of jam.
Cool and divide into jars.
Top with Reefer Kefir and blast off.
Monica Dimas's Porchetta rubbed in THC oil
As mentioned earlier, THC and fat are best buds. So it makes sense that when I asked Monica Dimas to contribute a dish, she instantly gravitated toward porchetta. What is porchetta? It is pork belly, rubbed on the inside with spices and oil (0.5 ounce unactivated THC oil in this case), rolled up, trussed, and slow roasted. It is, essentially, the best way to reverse four hours of exercise in four bites. Porchetta is one of those impossibly rich meats, and in the company of the aioli and the fried egg, it's almost too much. But with a bit of crunch from the mixed greens and a bit of acid from the pickled onions, it's perfect. Aside from trussing the slab, the recipe for this porchetta sandwich is ludicrously simple, and the yield will keep you fed and stoned for weeks.
This is also a perfect recipe to use unactivated oil in, as the boiling point of THC is about 314 degrees F. The relatively low roasting temperature for the porchetta serves the dual purpose of making your sandwich meat insanely tender and conserving the maximum amount of THC. Also, 0.5 ounce of oil for an entire slab of belly yields a relatively low dosage per serving (50 mg/approximately 12 portions = 4.16 mg/portion), meaning that you can have this for lunch and enjoy a productive afternoon and be only slightly buzzed. You can always use a full ounce or mix the thyme with chopped buds to up the potency.
The BellyIngredients
1 pork belly, skin on
thyme, salt, and pepper
0.5 ounce unactivated THC oil
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Rub the inside of the pork belly with the thyme, salt, pepper, THC oil, and baking soda.
Roll the belly up. It should resemble a hobo's bedroll when you're done. Tie the whole affair up tightly with kitchen twine, making loops around the roll every three or four inches.
Roast at 300 degrees for three hours.
Let cool, slice as many portions as you plan to eat immediately, and store the rest in plastic wrap in the fridge.
Yields about 12 portions of porchetta at approximately 4 mg of THC each.
The SandwichIngredients
Good, lemony aioli (store-bought is fine, or for a weedier option, see Aaron Wilcenski's infused aioli recipe later in this article)
pickled red onion
mixed greens
1 egg
2 slices of good bread, toasted
1 portion (about 3 to 4Πinch slices, depending on your appetite) of the porchetta
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Slather one piece of toasted bread with a thick layer of aioli. Pile on as many quarter-inch-thick slices of porchetta as you can handle. Top with mixed greens and pickled onions.
Fry an egg over easy, salt it, sprinkle black pepper on top, and slide it out of the pan onto your waiting sandwich. Resist the urge to Instagram it.
Top with the other slice of toasted bread. Try to be dainty and avoid getting egg yolk all over your chin. Forgive yourself when you fail, because it's just too good.
Aleks Dimitrijevic's Roasted bone marrow with infused butter and toasts
I've had plenty of bone marrow recently, and none of itâall questions of psychoactivity asideâquite compares to this. The marrow was texturally perfect throughout, and the first bite filled me with pure, unadulterated joy, as well as salty, herbaceous THC-infused butter. My guess is that the squat, horizontal cut of the bones, as opposed to a long, vertical slice, was what enabled the marrow to achieve a consistent gooeyness the whole way through. It also made the marrow a breeze to get at, as a single poke with a butter knife was sufficient to send it sliding out the bottom of the bone onto a waiting toast. The added reward of using extra toasts to mop up the mixture of butter and juices that remained in the serving pan made my eyeballs roll back into my head in an overload of bliss.
Infused ButterIngredients
0.25 ounce buds, finely chopped
1 stick of butter
Instructions
Bring the butter to a steady simmer over medium low heat.
Add chopped buds, reserving about a tablespoon for stuffing the marrow bones, and simmer, stirring occasionally and being careful not to let the butter burn.
Yields 6 to 8 tablespoons of moderately strong infused butter (High Times says this ratio of ingredients will get you stoned but not knocked on your ass).
Bone MarrowIngredients
6 to 8 segments of marrow bone, 2 to 4 inches each
scallion, green onion, fresh chopped herbs
salt and pepper
toasted slices of mini baguette
1 tablespoon buds, finely chopped
infused butter as desired
Instructions
Cut a small groove into the marrow of each segment, and stuff with the chopped bud.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Roast in a hot oven until the marrow "goes gooey all the way through." Translation: You just gotta check it and poke it and trust your gut. When it's ready, the marrow should effortlessly slide away from the bone.
Top finished marrow bones with scallion, green onion, and chopped herbs.
Pour liberal spoonfuls of infused butter over the marrow, line the pan with toasts, and serve family style.
Aaron Wilcenski's Veal shoulder with parsnips
Aaron "Big A" Wilcenski's dish was something of the main event, or at least the meatiest event. He slow-braised veal shoulder ahead of time in a mixture of fernet and Coca-Cola, hoping to marry the herbaceousness of the fernet with the inherent herbaceousness of pot. He also braised parsnips in the same mixture, then pureed them and added THC oil. And he topped the veal medallions with a dab of aioli, also with THC oil in it. And then he served it alongside parsnips cooked with THC oil. In other words, he infused everything but the meat, which turned out to be a godsend, as I was trying to avoid straining my tolerance but was completely unwilling to stop eating the enormous medallion of fall-apart tender veal he placed in front of me. Not that that helped that much: His three different preparations of parsnip were similarly impossible to pass up.
Fernet/Coke Braised VealIngredients
10-pound veal shoulder
400 ml fernet
4 bottles Mexican Coke
chopped garlic and onion
fresh herbs of your liking
1 quart parsnips
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Heat 1 tablespoon cooking oil in a large pan, and brown the veal shoulder on all sides in it.
Move shoulder to roasting pan and set aside.
In original, still hot pan, sauté garlic, onion, and herbs until they begin to brown.
Deglaze with Coke and fernet, scraping the pan with a wooden spoon to capture all the delicious crispy bits.
Add contents of pan and parnsips to veal, cover, and braise at 350 degrees for about 5 or 6 hours, or until fork tender.
Infused Roasted ParsnipsIngredients
parsnips, roughly chopped (about half-inch pieces)
infused butter or coconut oil
Instructions
Roast parsnips in oil until crispy on both sides and tender throughout.
The potency of the parsnips is difficult to estimate, but likely very mild, as the amount of fat that ends up on each one is small.
Ingredients
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1.5 ounces champagne vinegar
pinch of flour
1 tablespoon activated THC oil
1 cup vegetable oil
salt and pepper
Instructions
Pulse garlic, egg yolks, and champagne vinegar in a food processor or with a hand blender in a bowl.
Add THC oil to vegetable oil and drizzle into the food processor or bowl, blending consistently to emulsify.
Add a pinch of flour and blend in to thicken.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Yields about 1 quart of aioli with 10 to 15 mg of THC. Again, very low potency, especially when taken as a single dollop.
Parsnip PureeIngredients
1 quart braised parsnips
0.5 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon activated THC oil
Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a blender and pulse until smooth, adding oil as necessary to achieve desired texture.
Spread a thick layer on the plate and set a medallion of the veal shoulder in the middle, topped with a liberal spoonful of the THC-infused aioli. Arrange roasted parsnip chunks alongside.
Yields about 1 quart of parsnip puree with about 10 to 15 mg of THC.
Shaved Parsnip Salad with Infused VinaigretteIngredients
3:1 vinegar to oil
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon activated THC oil
parsnips sliced lengthwise on a mandolin
chives, finely chopped
Instructions
Combine vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, and THC oil, and blend to make dressing.
Toss shaved parsnips in dressing and sprinkle with chives.
Arrange atop veal medallion and sprinkle with chives.
Again, 10 to 15 mg of THC here. Its strength is affected, obviously, by how much dressing you dilute it into. There's not much THC in any of these dishes, but put them all together in one dish, and you have a respectable buzz.
Clare Gordon's Chocolate cardamom ice cream
Though the goal with this project was to make foods other than the sugary, starchy edibles available everywhere, we still needed dessert. Enter Clare Gordon, with her luscious chocolate cardamom ice cream. Her goal, she says, was to "keep it earthy." She knocked it out of the park: rich dark chocolate, cardamom, a light touch with the sugar, and a bit of sprinkled flower combined to give this ice cream a complexity that I had not thought possible. Its perfectly luscious texture she attributes to her higher ratio of milk to cream, which seems counterintuitive, but works. The ice cream is "heavier on your tongue with more milk in it. And it's colder," she says. You'll need an ice cream spinner and some patience for this one, but it's well worth the trouble.
Ingredients
3 cups whole milk
1.5 cups heavy cream
1.5 teaspoons freshly ground cardamom or 1 teaspoon already ground cardamom
4.5 tablespoons cocoa powder
7 egg yolks
1 cup of white sugar, minus a tablespoon
1.25 teaspoons salt
7.5 ounces very dark chocolate pieces, good quality
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
0.5 ounce activated THC oil
Instructions
Combine milk, cream, and cardamom in a medium saucepan.
Scald milk mixture (like, almost boil it). Set aside for 15 to 30 minutes to infuse. Bring back to a high temperature on the stove, whisking in the cocoa powder to dissolve.
In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks, sugar, and salt. Temper in cardamom/cocoa milk mixture (whisk in about half a cup, then about a cup, then all of the milk). Bring back to heat, cooking only until slightly thickenedâyou really don't want to take it too far here, or your ice cream base will end up very, very thick, more like pudding than crĂšme anglaise, and it will be hard to spin.
Put chocolate in a medium bowl and pour the hot mixture over it. Let sit for 30 seconds or so and whisk to combine. Mix in vanilla extract and THC oil, pass through a fine mesh strainer, and cool over an ice bath. Freeze according to your ice cream spinner's instructions. Enjoy!
Yields about 1.25 quarts of ice cream with 50 mg of THC. 
