Nikki Duffy
LATIN NAME
Coffea arabica, Coffea canephora
SOURCING
fairtrade.org.uk; cafedirect.co.uk; equalexchange.co.uk
There is nothing quite like the smell of freshly ground coffee beans. Breathe in those aromas of dark, sharp, smoky, chocolatey, barky, fruity loveliness and you realise that coffee can play a role in cooking. Roasted coffee beans are up there with good chocolate, wine, damson plums and bay leaves as a source of gloriously complex, aromatic flavour.
In sweet, baked things, coffee is exceptional, because combining it with sugar and butter or cream eases its sharp edges, and stretches and blends its lovely bitterness, allowing it to provide that wonderful edge that stops confections being sickly. A good coffee and walnut cake is testament to this.
But coffee has other applications. Its roasted, spicy, nutty notes will complement meat. It can even be used to doctor gravy – or in fact any meaty stew or braise that lacks that little bit of body – adding depth and acidity. And coffee can enhance the flavour of a tomato sauce.
In savoury cooking, the coffee you use should always be strong but, because you don’t want an actual clear coffee flavour to come through, it needn’t be astronomically pungent: espresso strength is fine.
In sweet cookery, it’s different: you need rocket-fuel coffee. If you can comfortably drink it, it’s definitely not strong enough. In order to concentrate coffee so that you get flavour without lots of liquid volume, you can brew very strong filter or cafetière coffee, then boil it down. And, while I’m usually no fan of instant coffee, it can be an excellent choice in baking: 1 tbsp instant granules dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water gives you, simply and quickly, something akin to coffee essence. (Sweetened coffee and chicory essences work well too, but these are not Fairtrade.)
The plight of Mexican coffee farmers sparked the launch of the first Fairtrade label in 1988 and coffee remains one of the most problematic commodities in the world, with inequality rife and prices often fluctuating crazily. Check out coffees from companies such as Equal Exchange and Cafédirect – their organic Machu Picchu is a personal favourite.
ORANGE AND GINGER FOOL WITH COFFEE SYRUP
Good coffee has warm, citrusy notes and spicy overtones, which are played upon in this recipe. To begin with, all the flavours are distinct but, by the time you get to the bottom of the dish, the fool has become one creamy, fruity, tangy melange. Serves 6
3 oranges
300ml double cream
300g plain wholemilk yoghurt
2 tbsp syrup from the stem ginger jar (or 2 tbsp caster sugar)
40g stem ginger in syrup, finely diced
FOR THE COFFEE SYRUP
150ml freshly brewed strong coffee
75g caster sugar
To make the coffee syrup, put the coffee and sugar into a small saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved, then simmer for 10–15 minutes or reduced by half and syrupy, lowering the heat as necessary. Leave to cool completely.
Take a little slice off the top and base of one orange. Stand it on a board and use a sharp knife to cut away the peel and pith, leaving you with a skinless fruit. Working over a bowl, slice out the orange segments from between their membranes and drop them into the bowl. Repeat with the other oranges.
For the fool, put the cream, yoghurt and syrup or sugar into a large bowl and beat with a hand-held electric whisk until the mixture just holds soft peaks. Fold in the diced ginger.
Put a heaped tablespoonful of the fool in the base of each of 6 glasses. Top with a few orange segments (leave the juice behind for drinking) and a little trickle of coffee syrup. Repeat these layers, using up the remaining ingredients, and serve.