This week I posted a question to an Israeli food email group. My stock of cheap "French Vanilla" coffee is almost gone. I use it with the Israeli "Aladdin," Turkish coffee for a rather international morning pick-me-up, adding milk and sugar. Well, it's almost finished, and just plain coffee's a bore. I tried adding vanilla extract to the water in the coffeemaker, but the results are blah. The extract isn't vanillay enough.
Someone replied an recommended a food/recipe site which tackles it from yet another direction. Flavor the sugar. So, to do that I need real vanilla beans. Then I cut one in half, lengthwise, and put it in a jar with 2 cups of sugar, wait a couple of weeks, and the sugar will be flavored with vanilla.
So, that means that I have to find vanilla beans... But first, does it really give me a vanilla-flavored drink?
I buy my beans at Pereg in the Machane Yehuda shuk in Jerusalem.
ReplyDeleteBuy 4 more and a liter of vodka. Slice the bean in half lengthwise, scrape and add the scrapings and the bean to the bottle of vodka. Store in a dark cupboard for about 2 months and you'll never buy ready-made vanilla extract again.
Oh, forgot to mention - the beans should be pliable. That's how you know they're fresh.
ReplyDeleteThanks
ReplyDeleteI found Pereg yesterday, bought some beans, not cheap. The guy there insultingly thought my detailed questions needed English replies. I told him that my Hebrew's fine, I've just never seen those strange-looking vanilla "beans" before. Well, he said that I should put the scrapings into the vodka and the rest into sugar. OK, so now I have to buy some vodka. I'm not going to use the Absolut from duty free. He also said that a few days would be enough.
As this site explains: http://www.kitchenproject.com/vanilla/4FoldVanillaExtract.htm
ReplyDeletethe longer you let it sit, the more potent it becomes.
Here's what mine looked like after 1 month: http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j55/Kmelion/Scenery/Vanilla.jpg
And this is after 2 months: http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j55/Kmelion/Scenery/DSCF3473.jpg
Thanks, but now I'm even more confused. The guy in Pereg told me to scrape the inside of the bean into a bottle of vodka and use the "klipot" in sugar.
ReplyDelete