Quarantine Drinks V.11: Foamy Drinks

Hello Stranger,

Or friend? Or acquaintance? 

Anyhow, this week on IG live, we did as we were told and learned and made stuff using foams.

We settled on two basic foams used. One that uses soy lecithin which is an emulsifier that basically helps this get foamy and then holds the foam in place. The other involves using egg whites and a cocktail shaker. These are two very, very, very different kinds of foam. One essentially has no taste, but is rich, creamy and adds texture to your drink. The other essentially has no body, but is loaded with aromatics and flavor. Let's jump in:

Tea Cocktail with Egg-white Foam

Make a black tea syrup to start:

3g black tea, steep with 100g boiling water for 3 minutes and strain over 50g demerara sugar (or whatever sugar you have.) Also, use any kind of tea you have. Oolong would be nice here. 

Then, grab a cocktail shaker and throw in one tablespoon of egg whites or the white of one egg. The secret for egg foam is to do a "dry shake" before you add anything else. For a long time. So give this a super good shake for 30 seconds. 

THEN you'll add 1.5oz of lemon juice, 1.5oz of tea syrup, 1.5oz of amaretto and some ice. 

Shake shake shake and then double strain into a glass. 

Honey Matcha Shot with Strawberry "Air"

Let's make some strawberry foam. There a bunch of videos out there but every one I found had some measurement issue so we winged it and this is what worked for us:

2 cups strawberries, chopped up. Throw it in a blender with 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Blend. 

Pour out into a somewhat wide container. You want the liquid deep enough so that when you put in a hand mixer, you can submerge it almost all the way, but wide enough so that as you make the foam, there's somewhere for the foam to go. 

Add 4g of soy lecithin to this mix and take your hand mixer and mix it all together. Then tilt the mixer at a 45 degree angle (THIS IS THE KEY) so that it's mixing in air into your strawberry mix. You should see foam start to form as you're injecting air into this mix. 

The lecithin will keep the foam in tact for around 15 minutes, so once you have enough foam sitting on top, set this aside. 

Grab 1 tsp of matcha and add 2 tsp of honey or sugar to it. Pour 3 tablespoons of hot water into this and whisk it like crazy. Pour into a glass. 

Grab a spoon and gently spoon the strawberry foam over matcha mix. You should get an interesting contrast of cold foam (you could even freeze it) and hot matcha, sweet and tart from the strawberry, earthy and bitter from the matcha, light and airy texture from the foam and thickness from the matcha. It's a great play of so many contrasts. 

Enjoy! 

- B