From Great Food in the April 2008 issue of
O, The Oprah Magazine

You may sip it or gulp it; crave it, shun it, despise it, or adore it. Whatever your disposition toward coffee, surely you encounter it – and its disciples – on every corner, every day. So it seems preposterous to insist that coffee is an underappreciated liquid. But it is! Because morning, afternoon, and night, we typically just drink it. And coffee has more to offer than that.

Dessert lovers are already into this secret – half of it, anyway- having experienced the depth and balance coffee’s bitterness adds to ice creams, custards, and cakes. Indeed, bitterness,a word generally associated with unpleasant people and bad experiences (the ones that leave a “bitter taste” in your mouth), is an essential component of most of our favorite sweets, not just tiramisu and java swirl. Chocolate,for example, is built on all-but-unpalatable pure cocoa, and caramel strikes a lovely equilibrium between browned sugars, both bitter and sweet. Coffee has a natural place in the pastry kitchen.

But coffee contains a multitude of other flavors, too. A good brew will show a lively acidity,subtle fruitness, and toasty warmth. “Coffee contains a highly complex collection of volatile oils and flavor compounds, just like wine,”says Rocco DiSpirito, author of Rocco’s Real Life Recipies. In fact, when coffee was first brought to Europe in the 1600s, it was called Arabian wine. But while wine is used frequently in everything from hearty stews to the most elegant sauces, “coffee is underused in savory cooking,” according to DiSpirito.

It doesn’t take much of this potent substance to add a deep, mysterious note to robust dishes like chicken with coffee mole and coffee and spice rubbed steak. Coffee is most at home in dishes where potent elements-meat tomatoes,spices,smoke -stand up to its kick-in-the-pants flavor. In liquid form,it can add an enigmatic darkness to subtler combinations, too, such as rice cooked with brewed coffee,chicken broth,oregano and butter.

The right coffee for cooking depends on the recipie. Very dark, heavily roasted beans, such as French roast and espresso, are actually less acidic than lighter beans,because acids burn away during the roasting process. These almost-black beans-and the beverages that result from them-are great in desserts,where the bright,fruity notes of a lighter roast (often called medium or Vienna)would be out of place. Not every dish requires that you brew up a pot. A teaspoon of ground coffee straight from the bag adds flavor without extra moisture to spice rubs and cakes. Just pay attention to the exact amount of coffee specified in each recipe – instant or ground, powder or brewed,medium roast or dark; they are not interchangable. And take care not to get too carried away once you start experimenting with coffee cuisine – the last thing you want is to use up every bean and awaken the next morning to an empty coffee jar.

See our coffee recipes page for many yummy recipes.