Vietnamese Drip Coffee

I love coffee.  Many words can describe my adoration but let me start by saying the opposite, without coffee, the light bulb in my head won't work.  I need this light bulb ON most of the day and hence, my craving for great coffee - both flavor and aroma.  Believe me, i'm still at my infancy compared to the die hard Cappuccino and Latte fans of Starbucks but i'm beginning to truly appreciate unadulterated coffee - simple to prepare, no fuss, just pure coffee goodness.

So here comes our discovery of the Vietnamese way of preparing coffee - the all natural use of gravity to slowly let the coffee trickle down from the coffee press.  The result is oozing coffee madness -- my light bulb is fully charged 24/7 without a need for another cup.

I have to give credit to my husband for introducing me to the Vietnamese "drip" coffee.  He came back from Vietnam with a pair of stainless metal drip coffee filter.    It is a summation of four essential accessories (from top to bottom) - the cover, the container, the filter, and the coffee press.

 To get started, measure a full tablespoon of ground coffee and press firmly at the base of the filter, cover with the coffee press.  Add hot water to fill half the metal container. Depending on how strong you want your coffee to be, you can add more ground coffee but it is recommended not to dilute with more water while on the coffee press, you can do that later after all the coffee has dripped.  This is to make sure you don't loose on the richness of the flavor.

My husband bought the Nam Nguyen ground coffee from Vietnam, i'm not too sure where to buy Vietnam coffee in Singapore yet but, the method of course can be re-applied with any other coffee powder. I'm thinking to use (for next time) the native coffee used in most Kopitiam, that would be an interesting take of the fave Singapore Kopi-O.

Traditionally in Vietnam, they use condensed milk  as the sweetener instead of sugar.  If you want it black, you can just go for the pure coffee drip.  After 3-5mins of wait, the coffee is ready to go!

The iced coffee version is equally nice to quench the thirst.  Fill up a drinking glass with ice cubes, pour in the freshly prepared drip coffee, stir, add more condensed milk as required.

Coffee cheers, everyone!

French "Sous Vide", Filipino Style

Sous vide is French for “under vacuum” and describes a method of cooking in vacuum sealed plastic pouches at precisely controlled temperatures.  This is not my key interest but one day, my hubby came home with this obsession for vacuum sealed cooking and started to toy around the idea of, what if, he makes his own sous vide steak?  


The idea of having a decent steak at home and much more, using some French method is just so Mt Everest to my cooking skills. I'm not really keen to move any finger until... the Ziploc bags arrived (thank you to my sis-in-law from the US), a new rice cooker (i'll tell you more about that later), some gadgets from China (which I do not know what for), and a temp control monitor arrived at home.  Looks like, Mr. G has a sous vide plan.


The first thing that comes to my mind is, how are we going to cook without the sous vide equipment? and never mind i cannot pronounce "sous vide" well, how affordable is getting one?  Several Google hits later, i found that a sous vide equipment could range from $300-$1200 depending of course on how sophisticated a machine you want to purchase.

So here comes the value of the rice cooker... Mr. G bought a big cauldron of a rice cooker, assembled a thermostat and viola! an improvised sous vide equipment ready for his first steak.

The days that followed is a gastronomic experiment.  It started with the search for the best (yet inexpensive) meat , followed by knowing the best way to marinade (including finding a bottle of liquefied smoke)... 

  

then comes the art of vacuum sealing the meat...

Since the vacuum Ziploc bags are not easily found here in Singapore, we wanted to make sure we can recycle.  We used the resealable freezer bag first before slipping inside the vacuum Ziploc bag...

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and finally, the patience to wait for 24 hours for the meat to slow cook under a constant temperature of 56C.  This is the temperature recommended for medium rare steak.

After 24 hours, remove the meat from the plastic bag, and pat the meat dry with paper towel.  Prepare pan for searing the meat.  Sear the meat at high heat for at least 30 secs per side just enough to brown each side and bring out the flavor.  


The result is surprisingly the most tender, juicy steak we've had and it is home-cooked, it is a SUCCESS!

Having a boost of French cooking confidence, Mr G also prepared breakfast "sous vide" style with our favorite beef steak served with egg,  


The beef steak is to die for and the egg is the creamiest i've tasted ...it gave a new meaning to the usual sunny side up:-)

Looks like the big rice cooker will be busy cooking week to week, can't wait for the next "sous vide" food surprise!