Kokkaffe – nostalgisk trend på väg tillbaka

Kokkaffe 

Kaffekännaren Henrik Arvidsson, Asarum, applåderar den senaste retrotrenden:
– Det är godare. Hundratals smaker försvinner i filtret när man brygger kaffet, säger han.

Hur kokar man kaffe?
Kokkaffe är en grov malning som lämpar sig för beredning i kaffepanna. När man ”kokar” kaffe doserar man de malda kaffebönorna direkt i en kaffepanna med kallt, friskt vatten. Kaffet ska sedan endast sjuda upp utan att koka och därefter stå och dra i ca 5 minuter. Om kaffet får koka förstörs en del av de fina aromerna och kaffet blir beskare i smaken. Några droppar kallt vatten i pipen hjälper sumpen att sjunka.

Photo: Courtesy of MATTIAS MATTISSON

Allt fler väljer att koka sitt kaffe på spisen. Men Sydöstrans mindre vetenskapliga undersökning avslöjar att trenden inte riktigt nått Blekinge ännu. Det krävs många förfrågningar och telefonsamtal innan vi hittar en Blekingebo som faktiskt kokar sitt kaffe. Jan-Erik Abrahamsson brukar bjuda på tusentals koppar kokkaffe vid gökottan på Karlsnäs i Ronne­by varje vår. Flera flak med kokkaffe går åt.
– På Kristi himmelfärdsdag samlas mellan åtta och nio hundra personer tidigt på morgonen. Redan vid sju har jag första grytan med kokkaffe klar. Kokkaffe är jättegott, särskilt när man är utomhus, säger Jan-Erik Abrahamsson.

Men till vardags brygger han för det mesta sitt kaffe.
– Det är trots allt lite bökigare med kokkaffe eftersom man måste hålla koll hela tiden så det inte kokar över. 
Holger Carlsson förklarar att hans mamma köpte en kaffebryggare när kaffepannan kokat över för många gånger.
– Man satte på kitteln och gick ut för att stänga till dörren. Ofta upptäckte man annat som behövdes göras, till exempel en trappa som skulle skottas. Och så glömde man bort kaffet och det pyste över, minns Holger Carlsson.

Klarskinn kallades de torkade fiskskinn som användes förr i världen till att "klarna" kokkaffet. Jan-Erik Abrahamsson föredrar att använda lite kallt vatten i stället.
Den som tycker att kokkaffe smakar mer än vanligt brygg får stöd av kaffe­experten Henrik Arvidsson, Blekinge Kafferosteri, Asarum:
– Ett par hundra smaker fastnar i pappret när man brygger med filter, säger han. Jag tycker det är spännande med olika metoder, men det är sällan som någon vill köpa kokkaffe. Bönorna är lite grövre än de som ska bryggas. 90 procent av mina kunder vill ha bryggkaffe, bara en procent säger att de ska göra kokkaffe.

Många minns säkert äldre släktingar som drack kaffe på bit eller fat.
När man kokar sitt kaffe blir det mycket varmare än i kaffebryggaren.
– Om man då dricker det på fat svalnar det snabbare, konstaterar Henrik Arvidsson.
Eftersom han sysslar med kaffe och olika sorter kommer han i kontakt med många trender. Kokkaffet tilltalar kanske dem som söker efter ett lugnare tempo i tillvaron, som gillar att mala sina egna kaffebönor och som inte har några problem med att vakta pannan på spisen.
– Just nu är det inne med kapslar som man stoppar i en maskin. Det är både dyrt och dåligt för miljön. Jag hoppas och tror att folk snart tröttnar på dem.

Det är många som Sydöstran pratat med som har varma minnen av människor och upplevelser som förknippas med kokkaffe.
– Min mormor drack alltid kokkaffe, säger Martin Persson.
– ”Kokekaffe” förknippar jag med mysiga omständigheter som roddutflykt och övernattning på Flakskär, berättar konstnär Åke Franzén, som annars är mer förtjust i te.
[Source: "http://www.sydostran.se/ettan/kokkaffe-nostalgisk-trend-pa-vag-tillbaka/"]

Why do different coffees have such different flavors? Goto Youtube: The Art of Cupping - or Coffee Cupping:

This isn’t an issue of how you make the coffee (see the 3/30 tasting notes above for that). It’s about where the beans come from and how they’re processed before they even get to our roasting plant. Coffee, like wine, picks up flavor and body characteristics from the soil in which it’s grown, the weather that growing season, the altitude, surrounding foliage, and many other factors. In the world of wine and coffee, all of these factors together are called terroir.

[Coffee Cupping Notes, Ryan Miller, http://cafefonte.com/]

Øko-grød / Øllebrød

4 personer
400 g rugbrød (ca. et halvt),
500 g Ale/Hvidtøl
1 appelsin
2 dl vand
65 g brun farin
95 g hakket mørk chokolade, (72 pct.)
100 g fløde
evt. vaniljeis

Siden Noma og nordisk mad blev kendt i 2009 havde folk i almindelighed glemt øllebrød. De havde nok hørt om det, men betragtet det mere som gammeldags fattigmandskost end som noget med gastronomisk kvalitet i. Siden har jeg ved flere tilfælde forsøgt at lave det for mine venner både i Sverige og i Schweiz, men har efterhånden indset at smagen måske kræver dansk hvidtøl, eller hvad ved jeg?

Sådan gør du:

1. Brødet skæres i terninger og lægges i blød i øllet til dagen efter. Dagen efter sigtes det overskydende øl fra (men smides ikke ud), og brødet blendes til en pure.

2. Riv skallen af appelsinen, og pres saften ud i en gryde, som øllebrødet hældes op i. Varm det op under omrøring med vand, farin og appelsinsaft, og tilsæt evt. noget af det overskydende øl, hvis den er for tyk – det kan variere meget, alt efter hvor gammelt og tørt rugbrødet har været.

3. Mens grøden er varm, tilsættes chokoladen, og der røres godt rundt.

4. Den serveres varm med fløden over og evt. en lille kugle vaniljeis, hvis det skal være meget dekadent.

---
EN.
ingredients (4 servings)
 rye bread, 400 g (about half)
Ale/Beer,  500 g
1 orange
2 cups water
brown sugar 65 g
chopped dark chocolate, 95 g (72 %)
cream 100 g,
(vanilla ice cream)

Preparation:
1. Break/cut the rye bread in cubes and soak in beer over-night. The following day, sift out the excess beer (but don't throw it out), and mix the bread with a blender to a paste.

2. Grate the orange peel and squeeze out the juice into a pot and pour in the beer & bread. Heat it up while stirring with some water, brown sugar and orange juice, and add some of the excess beer, if the porridge is too thick - it can vary depending on how old and dry the rye bread is.

3. When the porridge is simmering warm, add the chocolate, and stir.

4. Serve it warm with a spoonful of cream and for instance a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.

How Sugar Makes Steak Better

Lite socker ovanpå det hela, då blir steken mycket bättre! 

(It's not because it makes it sweeter.)

So you're ready for summer grilling. You've purchased the perfect grill, and you've procured the latest, greatest cuts of steak.

Cut to you throwing that glorious piece of meat onto a blazing hot grill, all of your loved ones looking on in anticipation. A few minutes later, the steak is pulled off the grill. You slice into the meat's thick crust to reveal perfectly medium-rare flesh. The only problem? When you actually eat the steak you realize it's, well, chewy. And why? Because you forgot the sugar.

It may seem counter-intuitive to make like Mary Poppins and add a spoonful of the sweet stuff to your meat. But you don't add sugar for its flavor—you add it for its effect on texture. Some of the most popular cuts of beef (skirt steak, flank steak) are tough and chewy unless exposed to sugar, which is a natural tenderizer. So how do you get the sugar onto the steak? Two ways:

THROW TOGETHER A QUICK RUB
Make a large batch of this easy-to-remember rub to use on beef, poultry, or vegetables: Combine 4 parts salt, 3 parts brown sugar, 2 parts sweet paprika, and 1 part cayenne pepper. It sounds like a lot of sugar, but it's not there just to tenderize—it also assists in giving your steak a caramelized crust.

WHIP UP A SIMPLE MARINADE
If you've got extra time on your hands, tenderize whatever you're cooking with an easy marinade. Combine brown sugar with other flavorful ingredients such as cilantro, olive oil, soy sauce, garlic, even a few jalapeños, if you've got some. The marinade found in this recipe for Korean steak tacos is a good place to start; let the meat marinate for at least 20 minutes, and up to 24 hours.

Epicurious: The Best French Onion Soup You Will Ever Have

Onions. Broth. Bread. Cheese. Treat these elements right, and you've got a road-map to the ultimate winter soup.

T.G.S. startade med en fransk löksoppa. Äntligen är det säsong för löksoppa igen!

Leave it to the French to make a glorious, silky soup from a vegetable as ordinary as an onion. But if it’s so easy to make, why are we often subjected to shoddy bowls of thin, tasteless onion-water? Or, worse, acrid burnt onion broth? Or even worse: a cloudy, oily mess? Like many straightforward dishes, the outcome relies on nailing the technique and deploying just the right ingredients. So the Epicurious Test Kitchen merged the best parts of the recipes on our site to create Our Favorite French Onion Soup.

Here’s how we cracked the code on this time-honored recipe:

PAIR BEEF BROTH WITH WHITE WINE (AND SKIP THE FLOUR)
Let’s start with the foundation for our soup. We’ve seen recipes that use beef broth, chicken broth, or a mix of the two. We've also seen recipes that call for red wine, white wine, or no wine at all. Our taste tests revealed the combination of an all-beef broth with white wine as the clear winner, as used in this Gourmet French Onion Soup. The beef broth (obviously home-made is best, but store-bought works too) adds an underlying richness to the soup, and we favored the lightness and acidity that white wine brings to the table.

We also tested thickening the soup with flour as well as omitting it from the recipe. We preferred the no-flour version, as used in this Bon Appétit rendition, which provides a beautiful clear broth without muddying the sweet and savory flavors of the soup.

CARAMELIZE YOUR VIDALIA ONIONS SLOWLY
As we read through your comments on the French Onion Soup recipes on the site, we heard you loud and clear: “More onions!” After all, it’s not called “Broth Soup” or “Cheesy Bread Soup.” So we took a cue from another Bon Appétit recipe and upped our onion-to-broth ratio to let the main ingredient shine.

We also found many recipes that just called for “onions.” But what kind of onions make for the best soup? We tried caramelizing red, yellow, and Vidalia onions and—shocker—the sweet Vidalias came out on top. Just a sprinkle of sugar and salt (and heat) transform these sweet onions into sweet, nutty, silky strands of pure gold.

But perfectly caramelized onions take time. Undercook your onions, and you’ll miss out on all that the savory sweetness. Some recipes call for cooking them for as little as 15 minutes, but we felt that this was not enough time to draw out their full flavor potential. Cook them too quickly over heat that’s too high, and you risk burning them and adding a scorched, bitter taste to your soup, so resist the urge to speed up this step. This French Onion Soup with Comté calls for cooking the onions for about an hour, which we thought was just right. When your onions are an even, deep golden brown like the kind of tan everyone wanted in the 80s, you know they're ready.

DON'T CLOBBER YOUR SOUP WITH HERBS
We initially tried adding a bundle of rosemary, thyme, and bay leaves to our soup, but found the rosemary to be a bit overpowering. The combination of thyme and bay leaves found in this recipe for Onion Soup with Loads of Thyme and Giant Gruyère Crostini was really well balanced, lending a subtle herbaceous flavor and aroma.

GO FOR GRUYÈRE
We’re not naming any names, but we know some people who eat French Onion Soup mostly for the blistered, melty, cheesy cap on top. So of course we had to give this element as much attention as the rest of the soup. And, just like the onions, many recipes call for generic “Swiss cheese.” Again, we asked, “What kind of Swiss cheese?” We narrowed it down to two contenders: Emmentaler and Gruyère. We tried them separately and mixed together. The slightly sweet, salty, nuttiness of Gruyère as found in this recipe won us over and was chosen to adorn our soup.

Many recipes include brandy in the cooking process or to finish the soup. We tried adding a touch to our brew, but it was a little too sweet. So we took a tip from Mixed Onion Soup in Sourdough Bread Bowls and tried finishing our bowls with a splash of dry sherry. The sherry complements the nuttiness of the Gruyère beautifully and adds a bright finish to the soup, yet the raw alcohol flavor gets mellowed by the warm broth. All in all, it's the perfect finishing touch.

French Onion Soup Toast / Photo & food styling by Rhoda Boone

The New Way to Toast Nuts Involves (Lots of) Butter

Yep, butter is always the answer:

"Quelles sont les trois secrets de la cuisine française"?

- "Beurre et beurre et le beurre"!

The New Way to Toast Nuts Involves Butter: 

A few months ago I was chatting with avid homecook and indie rock musician Chris Taylor when the conversation turned to a method I found in his cookbook, XX Dinners. To toast raw nuts for a salad, Taylor doesn’t use a dry skillet—he cooks the nuts in butter.

For me, this technique changes everything.

Because I’m your classic burn-and-learn kind of guy. Too often I dry-toast nuts for a snack or to sprinkle on oatmeal, and then I get distracted. When the warm, toasty smell of the nuts turns acrid and smokey, I know I've just ruined another batch.

No longer. Taylor's method sidesteps disaster. And it gets butter involved. So why would I use any other method again?

To get started, melt about two tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. As the butter gets foamy, add a handful of whatever nut you’re toasting. Stir the pan occasionally and keep your nose open for a toasty aroma. Breathe that in. As the nuts become golden brown, remove them with a slotted spoon and let them drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Yeah, I guess this method is more like frying than toasting. But as long as burning stays out of the equation, I'm not going to complain.

[Source: http://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/how-to-toast-nuts-in-brown-butter-article]

Nine Things They Do in Okinawa to Live Longer

Dessa befolkningar lever längre än de flesta. Här är nio saker dom gör:

"The Okinawans live by a few simple rules: 

1. “Hara Hachi Bu:” Eat until you are 80% full. 

2. Eat healthy foods, mostly plants. 

3. Keep a positive outlook. 

4. MOVE! The Okinawans remain active at any age; biking, walking, working in their gardens, dancing, practicing karate/tae chi, and kendo, are all ways in which these people keep their heart healthy. 

5. Socialize"

These People Live Longer Than Anyone. Here Are 9 Things They Do

The people of Okinawa, an island southwest of Japan's main landmass, are known for their longevity. Having studied the habits of particularly long-lived people, I've taken nine lessons from the Okinawans that I believe help them live long, happy lives.

1. Embrace an ikigai.

An ikigai is one's reason for being, or one's purpose in life. Older Okinawans can readily articulate the reason they get up in the morning. Their purpose-imbued lives gives them clear roles of responsibility and feelings of being needed well into their 100s.

2. Rely on a plant-based diet.

Older Okinawans have eaten a plant-based diet most of their lives. Their meals of stir-fried vegetables, sweet potatoes, and tofu are high in nutrients and low in calories. Goya, with its antioxidants and compounds that lower blood sugar, is of particular interest. While centenarian Okinawans do eat some pork, it's traditionally reserved only for infrequent ceremonial occasions and taken only in small amounts.

3. Get gardening.

Almost all Okinawan centenarians grow or once grew a garden. It’s a source of daily physical activity that exercises the body with a wide range of motion and helps reduce stress. It’s also a near-constant source of fresh vegetables.

4. Eat more soy.

The Okinawan diet is rich foods made with soy, like tofu and miso soup. Flavonoids in tofu may help protect the heart and guard against breast cancer. Fermented soy foods contribute to a healthy intestinal ecology and offer even better nutritional benefits.

5. Maintain a moai.

The Okinawan tradition of forming a moai, or a gathering of people, provides secure social networks. These safety nets lend financial and emotional support in times of need and give all of their members the stress-shedding security of knowing that there is always someone there for them.

6. Enjoy the sunshine.

Vitamin D, produced by the body when it’s exposed on a regular basis to sunlight, promotes stronger bones and healthier bodies. Spending time outside each day allows even senior Okinawans to have optimal vitamin D levels year-round.

7. Stay active.

Older Okinawans are active walkers and gardeners. The Okinawan household has very little furniture; residents take meals and relax sitting on tatami mats on the floor. The fact that old people get up and down off the floor several dozen times daily builds lower body strength and balance, which help protect against dangerous falls.

8. Plant a medical garden.

Mugwort, ginger, and turmeric are all staples of an Okinawan garden, and all have proven medicinal qualities. By consuming these every day, Okinawans may be protecting themselves against illness.

9. Have an attitude.

A hardship-tempered attitude has endowed Okinawans with an affable smugness. They’re able to let difficult early years remain in the past while they enjoy today’s simple pleasures. They’ve learned to be likable and to keep younger people in their company well into their old age.

This is an excerpt from Blue Zones: Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who’ve Lived The Longest by Dan Buettner, Copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

http://kortlink.dk/mindbodygreen/hf38 via @mindbodygreen

Inlagda rödbetor

Inlagda rödbetor (betteraves en conserve) håller sig månader om lagen täcker rödbetorna. Som lagen till rödbetor används inläggningslag sk 1-2-3 lag - dvs. 1 del ättika, 2 delar socker och 3 delar vatten.
Öppnad burk rödbetor förvaras i kylen. Vitpepparkorn, kryddnejlikor och pepparrot passar bra att lägga i glasburkarna.

 Ingredienser:
ca 2 liter inlagda rödbetor

    2 kg rödbetor
    2 tsk salt
    3 dl ättiksprit, 12% eller 1 1/4 dl ättiksyra (24%)
    7 dl vatten eller silat kokspad från rödbetorna
    3,5 dl socker
    1 tsk hel vitpeppar
    4 stk. kryddnejlikor
    1 bit pepparrot

Tillagning:

    ./ Skär av blast (låt rotfästet vara kvar) och skölj betorna. Sortera stora och små för sig.
   ./  Lägg dem i en kastrull och täck med vatten. Salta.
    ./ Koka rödbetor i cirka 17-20 minuter. Testa med provsticka om de är halvt mjuka.
   ./  Häll av spadet och spara det ev. till inläggningen genom att sila det genom ett kaffefilter.
    ./ Skölj rödbetorna i kallt vatten och skala dem med händerna.
    ./ Skär stora rödbetor i skivor. Dela små rödbetor på halvor eller lägg in hela.
    ./ Blanda och koka upp ättika, vatten (och/eller kokspad från rödbetor), socker och kryddor.
   ./  Fyll på med kokhet lag och rödbetor men lämna ca 2 cm upp till kanten.
    ./ Sätt på lock när lagen är het. Låt svalna med lock.
    ./ Förvara inlagda rödbetor svalt och mörkt ex. i kylens sval eller källaren.
   ./ Vänta gärna två veckor innan du äter de inlagda rödbetorna.
    ./ Hemgjorda inlagda rödbetor håller i upp till ett år om de förvaras mörkt och svalt.