Iced coffee time
Coffee ice cubes at Love Lane Kitchen in Mattituck. (June 13, 2009) Credit: Gordon M. Grant
Yesterday on Feed Me we went over the basics of iced tea. Today it’s iced coffee.
The key to iced-coffee success is strong coffee. You certainly can make good iced coffee with a drip maker or percolator, so long as you make it strong (try double strength). But my preferred method is using a stovetop espresso maker, also called a moka.
Mokas are widely available — most hardware stores stock them — and are very inexpensive. For the coffee, use a low-priced, preground espresso — something full-flavored but not fancy; it’s harder to get the nuances of any flavor when it’s chilled. I like Pilon, a Cuban brand, that I get for about $4 a pound. Other very good, cheap and widely available brands are Café Bustelo (also Cuban) and Medaglio d'Oro (Italian).
If you like sweetened iced coffee, add sugar to the brew when it’s hot. Then pour the coffee into a heatproof vessel and let it cool. Pour over ice, add milk, and drink away.
Serious iced-coffee aficionados make ice cubes out of coffee which, if you add milk, results in a beverage that actually gets stronger as the ice melts.
At Love Lane Kitchen in Mattituck, iced coffee is served over coffee ice cubes.
