Archive for June, 2010
Different Coffees for Different Beverages: Part Two
True coffee connoisseurs may endeavor to roast their own coffee, but most of us are content to let the coffee shop or manufacturer do that for us. But just as there are several varieties of coffee beans, there are also myriad ways to have them roasted. Here is a quick guide to the most common roasts you’ll come across:
~Light: Lightly roasted coffees have a high caffeine content and are quite acidic, giving them a distinctly bitter taste. 
The beans are cinnamon in color.
~Medium: One of the most common roasts, it is generally used for drip coffee and in cheap dehydrated coffees.
~Dark: The darker roasts will have a sweeter, less acidic flavor; they also contain less caffeine.
~French: Darker than the dark roast, French beans are very brown and have an oily appearance.
~Espresso: The darkest roast and, as you can probably ascertain, the recommended beans for use in your espresso machine.
Different Coffees for Different Beverages: Part One
In previous posts we’ve explored the various factors that determine the quality of a coffee bean. While some coffees are unequivocally better than others, many times the coffee you select will be due to a personal preference flavor preference. And while it is certainly okay to have favorites, certain styles and roasts of coffee work better in certain applications.
Mild Arabica beans are the highest quality coffee you can buy, and if it’s within your budget, you should use them for all applications. If you can’t afford Arabica all of the time, at least use them when you are brewing in your Saeco espresso machine. Since espresso is so concentrated, it is particularly important to use high quality beans. Tomorrow we will talk about the various roasts and their optimal usage.
In many American homes, the pepper and salt mill are the only two seasoning implements you’ll find in the kitchen. These are certainly the two staples of virtually every style of cuisine, but in order to take your culinary creations to the next level, it is necessary to expand your flavor horizons. Incorporating new herbs and spices into your dishes will enhance the flavor without adding fat, sodium or empty calories.
If you don’t know what spices complement certain foods, there are dozens of online resources that can be used to generate ideas. Once you have an understanding of how certain spices and herbs taste and meld with one another, you can experiment on your own. Combining flavor profiles from different styles of cuisine is a great way to add your own unique flair to your cooking.
Homeowners around the country fear hard water, but do you actually know what’s in it or why it’s such a hassle? Put simply, hard water has a high concentration of minerals, including calcium, magnesium, metal cations and other compounds like sulfates and bicarbonates. And while hard water is not typically not a health hazard, it can cause headaches in the home.
If you have ever had trouble working up a lather in the shower, you likely have hard water. In addition to preventing lather, hard water may also cause a distinct odor is your washing machine or dishwasher. Devices that use hot water, such as coffee machines, are susceptible to mineral buildup, but using a decalcifying product like Durgol can eliminate these deposits and prevent future buildup.
It’s no secret that Americans love their caffeine, but do you really know how much you are consuming? I was baffled when I recently discovered that a Venti latte from Starbucks contains over 400mg of caffeine; I used to be concerned about Red Bull, which in comparison has a paltry 75mg. As a frequent patron of Starbucks—I go at least twice a day—it became apparent that I would have to do something to curtail my coffee fixation.
Eliminating coffee from my daily routine was out of the question, so I decided to begin brewing my own java in order to monitor my caffeine intake. One of my friends had a couple of Solis espresso machines and offered to let me have the extra at a discount. Now I can brew my own coffee and carefully measure each serving.
Coffee makers have become so ingrained in American culture that it is often difficult to comprehend a time when the public wasn’t perpetually pumped full of caffeine. And while coffee drinking has been a popular pastime for centuries, it wasn’t until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the art was perfected. Up until then, people would simply add ground coffee to boiling water and allow it to brew until it smelled right. This produced an extremely thick beverage that necessitated an excessive amount of sugar to counterbalance its acidity.
The drip coffee maker, which is the standard model in most homes, first emerged at the dawn of the 20th century. And despite its old age, the drip machine had changed very little since its inception. Although less common today, percolators came into vogue at about the same time. Instead of utilizing gravity like the drip machine, a percolator heats water, forcing it through a tube and into a brewing basket with coffee grounds.
For the last nine years I have spent my summers working as a cook at a local summer camp. Since I am an elementary school teacher, I was in need of some supplemental income during the summer hiatus, and this position combined two of my favorite things: cooking and kids. While some people will undoubtedly have negative connotations with camp food, I endeavor to alter the stigma of this cuisine.
When it comes to the campers, I am constantly altering my menu in an attempt to offer foods they all will love. At the end of each week, I have the kids fill out a survey and take their suggestions and criticisms into account heading into the next. Counselors obviously have slightly different tastes, so I set up a separate area for them at each meal, which includes a few automatic espresso machines and foods catered to a more refined palette.
Many people use the terms “coffee” and “espresso” interchangeably, but there is actually a distinction between these two beverages. Espresso is a variation of coffee that is much more concentrated and often has a slightly thicker consistency. Since it is more highly concentrated, the natural assumption is that espresso contains more caffeine, which isn’t necessarily the case.
After the beverage has been extracted from espresso machines, it is typically served in small cups, containing around 250mg of caffeine. While the caffeine content of an equivalent cup of coffee will be about the same, those who enjoy a latte or beverage from a coffeehouse often opt for a Venti or other large quantities. Coffee beverages of this stature can contain nearly 500mg of caffeine, about twice that of a typical espresso.
Many people drink their morning cup of coffee with pious regularity but neglect to eat breakfast, which is even more essential to sustaining high energy levels throughout the morning. And when people do take the time to eat breakfast, it is typically processed foods, which are chockfull of artificial ingredients and preservatives. One common misconception about breakfast is that it is difficult, which doesn’t have to be the case.
While your automatic espresso machine is brewing your coffee, you can quickly scramble some eggs with a few cracks from your Cilio pepper mill and make yourself some toast with peanut butter. Even just eating a piece of fruit with a glass of milk is better than nothing. And for those that think breakfast is just additional calories, eating a meal in the morning actually kickstarts your metabolism and helps you burn more calories throughout the day.
Reliable References for a Culinary Apprentice
My mother is a living museum of great Italian recipes. Although she’s well into her 80s and occasionally forgets the names of her many nieces and nephews, she has a mind like a steel trap when it comes to cooking. A conservative estimate would be that she has memorized hundreds of pasta recipes in minute detail—from how many cups of flour to the ideal number of twists from one of her pepper mills. And it seems that every time I bring my family to her house we are treated to something new.
While I definitely inherited my mother’s passion for all things culinary, my memory is nowhere near as impeccable. A missed ingredient or two won’t always spoil the dish, but it can affect the outcome so dramatically as to prove shocking at times. With this in mind, I’ve started a vast collection of Italian cookbooks and loaded each one with bookmarks for my favorite recipes. That way I can refer back to them as often as necessary and treat my family to a consistently delicious dinner experience.