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?
5 comments:
I buy my beans at Pereg in the Machane Yehuda shuk in Jerusalem.
Buy 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.
Thanks
I 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
the 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.
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