DRINKS.
Coffee.
Never buy the ground coffee put up in packages, if you can get any other. The mere fact that after they have gone to the expense of the machinery and labor requisite for grinding it, the manufacturers can sell it cheaper per pound than grocers can the whole grains, roasted or raw, should convince every sensible person that it is adulterated with other and less expensive substances. Be that as it may, coffee loses its aroma so rapidly after it is ground that it is worth your while to buy it whole, either in small quantities freshly roasted, or raw, and roast it yourself; or stand by and see your respectable grocer grind what you have just bought. You can roast in a pan in the oven, stirring every few minutes, or in the same upon the top of the range. Stir often and roast quickly to a bright brown—not a dull black. While still hot, beat up the white of an egg with a tablespoonful of melted butter and stir up well with it. This will tend to preserve the flavor. Grind just enough at a time for a single making.
To make Coffee (boiled.)
- 1 full coffee-cup (½ pint) of ground coffee.
- 1 quart of boiling water.
- White of an egg, and crushed shell of same.
- ½ cup of cold water to settle it.
Stir up the eggshell and the white (beaten) with the coffee, and a very little cold water, and mix gradually with the boiling water in the coffee-boiler. Stir from the sides and top as it boils up. Boil pretty fast twelve minutes; pour in the cold water and take from the fire, setting gently upon the hearth to settle. In five minutes, pour it off carefully into your silver, china, or Britannia coffee-pot, which should be previously well scalded.
Send to table hot.
To make Coffee without Boiling.
There are so many patent coffee-pots for this purpose, and the directions sold with these are so minute, that I need give only a few general rules here. Allow rather more coffee to a given quantity of water than if it were to be boiled, and have it ground very fine. Put the coffee in the uppermost compartment, pour on the water very slowly until the fine coffee is saturated, then more rapidly. The water should be boiling. Shut down the top, and the coffee ought to be ready when it has gone through the double or treble set of strainers. Should it not be strong enough, run it through again.