Smoking
Smoking is a slow form of cooking that can pack in more flavour than probably any other form. It involves soaking the ingredient, whether it be fish, meat or some vegetables, in the smoke of an aromatic wood. The question is though, how can you do it at home.
Building a smoker is not a complicated process, but may take a bit of time and effort. An old style barbeque (you know the round ones you put coals in the bottom of) is easily modified into an A grade Smoker. Just get the barbeque, find a nice thick peice of metal tubing, about 10-15cm diameter is good and cut a hole to fit it in the bottom of the barbeque. Another smaller metal drum is now needed. Something like a vege oil drum, attach the other end of the pipe to the lid (the pipe needs to be long enough so that the meat doesn’t actually cook while being smoked, just picks up flavour) and put a lightbulb at the bottom. A Metal Mesh goes above the globe and this is where you place your leaves.
To cook, just pick the leaves and wood chips from an aromatic tree (Bay Trees are good) and put it on the metal mesh you installed. Put the Meat in the Smoker like you would if you were barbequing it. Turn on the light and wait 6 hours. After this you can refrigerate it and cook it on a grill later.
Smoking food is time consuming, can be expensive and a bit tricky, but the results can be superb.