winter warmer

During this past chilly week I have discovered a lovely way to make coffee, and it makes me feel like I am sitting in an exotic bedouin tent as opposed to being freezing in a drafty old house mid-winter. Being a coffee fanatic, I drink coffee according to mood. Latte usually in the day as a norm. But I also love those little strong numbers, from gritty thick Turkish coffee served in weeny cups to brutally strong espresso which could put hairs on your chest.

I was at a meeting last week and was served coffee in this way, and it is LOVELY. It smells and tastes heavenly, a bit spiced and moorish. You can have it black or white, and serve it as a strong small coffee or as a base for latte’s and cappucino’s.

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The magic ingredient is cardamom.

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An aromatic spice indigenous to south India and Sri Lanka, cardamom seeds come from a plant belonging to the ginger family. They are contained in small pods about the size of a cranberry. Cardamom has a wonderful aroma and an enticing warm, spicy-sweet flavour.

To Make:

You can use either a stove-top coffee maker or a cafetiere.
Use one seed per cup. Using the back of spoon, crush it so it splits.
Add to your normal ground coffee and brew.
Leave to stand for 5 minutes and the flavour and scent is released into the coffee.
Add milk and sugar if desired.

I already have used dried cinnamon in coffee at Christmas before, but this cardamom version scales way higher on the yummy scale. The next trial will be star anise….

IT IS READY….

For 3 months I have daily been shaking my bottles of sloes, gin and sugar. I picked them in the autumn, you can read about how to make them here. They have been stored in a dark place, and have now turned the most amazing shade of deep red. I left space in each bottle for vigourous shaking. I read somewhere that one sloe gin maker leaves it in the boot of his car for 3 months, so it rolls around every day. I did not risk it myself, just in case mine broke and my car smelled like I was a gin-soaked alcoholic!

I used a jam strainer bag made of muslin to pour the sloe gin through, as I wanted all of the sediment out of the drink where I have been violently shaking it every day. Then I just decanted it into pretty little 500ml Kilner preserving bottles. Job done.