Once, while staying in Thailand during the mango season, when the mangoes are very sweet and extremely cheap, I tried smoking them over a fire to create a sweet smoky mango treat. The results were a nice tasting but extremely mushily textured bowlful of depressed orange slop.
The problem was, mangoes have so much water in them that it would have taken most of the day and overnight to dehydrate them and by then the mango flavour would’ve been overpowered by the smoke flavour, as I found out on my second go. I think the trick would have been to dry them a little first and then smoke them.
On my return home from Thailand, I had another go. This time I smoked some hickory pineapple with pork ribs for a couple of hours at a mid-range temperature, having first marinated the pineapple in brown sugar and rum.
The results were very satisfying, and later that weekend I grilled some peaches with steak on smoked wood, meaning they picked up a good bit of smoky flavour, though they were technically grilled.
Smoky Fruit Tea
Next, I learned of smoked fruit tea. In Ukraine, smoked fruit and smoked fruit drinks are very common. Mostly pears and apples, but nothing as watery as mangoes. They dry the fruit and smoke it, then boil it with sugar, before draining the liquid off to make tea. This sweet fruity drink, with a distinctive smoky taste, is called compote.
Similarly, in Baku, Azerbaijan, they use cherries to the same effect.
Next, I am thinking about ‘cold’ smoking several different fruits: apples, pineapple, and possibly pears and blackberries. Good autumn fruits.
But the popularity of smoked fruit drinks has got my brain cogs turning, thinking about the possibility of some Ukrainian-style smoked fruit tea. I could use wintery fruits in a couple of months, once red bananas, pomegranates, kiwis, dates, plums and oranges are in their prime season, to share with friends over Christmas.