Featured this week is a poem about Michael Jackson’s life, a writing exercise of how to write a poetry version of a favorite person’s biography and a coffee recipe.
Coffee photo by once and future @ flickr
Pot-Brewed Coffee with Raw Sugar and Spices (Café de Olla)
From: by
Rick Bayless with Deann Groen Bayless @
Epicurious.com
This recipe is from the Rick Bayless cookbook -
"Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico" (found under the
Coffee section of
The Social Poets Amazon store or just click on this book link)
Yield: Makes 4 - 5 servings
Commentary from author Rick Bayless: “Today,
Mexico's best coffee is ripened and dried along the roadways in the cloud-blanketed highlands of Chiapas and over through Veracruz and Oaxaca. The prime beans are usually roasted a little darker than ours — almost a Viennese roast — and they brew a nice, medium-bodied liquid with some spunk. They tell me it's the second-class beans that get roasted darker, to a mahogany black with a shining sugar coat.
The steam-powered espresso machines in the city cafeterÃas extract a trio of ethnic brews: espresso, straight, foamy and Italian; café con leche, mixed with hot milk, French-style (but so common one would mistake it for purely Mexican); or Americano, simply diluted with water. The more rural brew leans toward the Spanish, the history books say, but it seems like a Mexican-flavored campfire version to me.
Café de Olla at its best is pot-boiled in earthenware with molassesy piloncillo sugar and spices like cinnamon,
anise or cloves. These days, many traditional city restaurants offer the dark, delicious drink more regularly, served in old-fashioned earthenware mugs at the end of the meal.”
Ingredients:
• 4-5 ounces piloncillo*, roughly chopped or 1/2 to 2/3 cup packed brown sugar, plus 1 teaspoon molasses
• 2 inches cinnamon stick
• A few aniseeds (optional)
• 2/3 cup (2 ounces) Viennese-roast coffee, medium to coarse grind
• *Unrefined sugar that is pressed into cone or disk shapes. Also called panela.
Directions:
Boiling and steeping: In a noncorrosive pan, combine 1 quart water, the sugar, cinnamon and optional aniseed. Bring slowly to a boil, stirring to melt the sugar. Stir in the coffee, remove from the fire, cover and steep for 5 minutes.
Straining: Strain the coffee through a fine-mesh sieve into cups or mugs and serve immediately.
A few reviews from the Epicurious site on this recipe:
"I made this for our dinner club and it was delicious. Just don't burn anyone pouring the coffee through the sieve! by A Cook from Alaska
"I needed a Mexican drink for a coffee where I demonstrated Mexican Appetizers. I put
Starbucks in my pot's filter basket, added 2 Teaspoons whole anise seed and a few teaspoons of cinnamon. The smell was fantastic and they drank more coffee than Sangria! I also had dark sugar cubes for those who wanted it! by petitti from Memphis
"Very authentic. The only change I make is to omit the sugar and allow each person to add his own, as this is quite sweet for most North Americans, and nearly undrinkable for those who don't normally sweeten their coffee. Do use dark brown sugar in either case, and piloncillo if available. If you're accustomed to sweetened coffee, follow the recipe,playing with the amount of sugar. by A Cook from Jackson, NJ
"I used the brown sugar with ground Starbucks, and it was extremely sweet. You may want to tone down the sugar to 1/3 instead of 2/3 Cups. Other than that, very nice after dinner type coffee drink. by Tony from Philly"
