A PERFECT WEEKEND SUMMER BREAKFAST

First the bread, my preference is for a fresh bloomer or baguette, though quality bread is increasingly difficult to find, most supermarket bread is crap, if you don’t have a good local baker farmers markets are a good place or a specialised bread stall at any local market. There is potentially so much wonderful bread and it all should be much more widely available. However given that we have located our bread this now leaves the question of the cheese. My own preference is for Camembert,* the king, or queen if you wish, of French cheeses. This should be purchased from a cheese stall; supermarket Camembert is invariably of poor quality and tends to be rubbery. It should already be ripening on purchase and left at room temperature for at least an hour. When ready it should be easily spreadable on fresh bread. Having got our bread and cheese we now turn to the coffee, and I recommend Turkish coffee. Now outside of certain London boroughs it can be difficult to purchase Turkish coffee however any filter coffee will do. S here is my recipe for good quality Turkish coffee.

1. Pour in cold water in the coffee pot. You should use one cup of cold water for each cup you are making and then add an extra half cup “for the pot”. Add a teaspoonful of the ground Turkish coffee** per cup in the water while the water is cold and stir. The amount of coffee may be varied to taste, but do not forget, there will be a thick layer of coffee grounds left at the bottom of your cup for properly made Turkish coffee. Don’t fill the pot too much. If you need to add sugar this is the time to do it.

2. Heat the pot as slowly as you can. The slower the heat the better it is. Make sure you watch it to prevent overflowing when the coffee boils.

3. When the water boils pour some (not all) of the coffee equally between the cups, filling each cup about a quarter to a third of the way. This will make sure that everybody gets a fair share of the foam forming on top of the pot, without which coffee loses much of its taste. Continue heating until coffee boils again (which will be very short now that it has already boiled). Then distribute the rest of the coffee between the cups.

Since there is no filtering of coffee at any time during this process, you should wait for a few minutes before drinking your delicious Turkish coffee while the coffee grounds settle at the bottom of the cup.

With bread and cheese and coffee prepared all that remains is a hefty chunk of the Saturday or Sunday papers and one is consumed as much as consuming.

*Brie of course is also an acceptable alternative.

** This is probably sacrilege to some but if you can’t find Ground Turkish coffee any strong filter coffee will do.

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