Cooking with Coffee

A couple recent Roaste blog posts inspired this post. So, more on cooking with coffee.

For me, cooking is one of the most cathartic and enjoyable experiences I can have. I love being in the kitchen, it does not matter if I am at home or work. By extension this means I'm always experimenting with or thinking and reading about food and flavors and how to best extract them. Through my (families) interest in food, I found coffee, brewing beer and more. As I discover and start working with these new fields I try to incorporate them or parts of them into my cooking.

Prior to becoming very interested in coffee, I used it my cooking as most people do: infusions, most often with a dairy product or perhaps the occasional incorporation in a sauce or stew. As I became more familiar with coffee, I started using it in dry rubs, dressings, marinades and dishes like ceviches or tartars. Very recently, a couple recent tweets about roasting food in spent and fresh coffee grounds (see below) from part of the Ideas in Food team got me thinking about cooking with coffee again.

http://www.twitter.com/#!/ideasinfood/statuses/160035128809226240
http://www.twitter.com/#!/akikamozawa/status/160094754535776256

Of course, moving on from the tweets roasting other vegetables in coffee grounds seems reasonable. But what else? I'm planning on making some sourdough bread with some cold brewed coffee as an experiment. I was also considering making a quick cure or possibly a brine with coffee for some scallops. But, back to the grounds. In the past I've had a killer cheese called Barely Buzzed from Beehive Cheese Co. Why stop there? One could make a mozzerella and incorporate a slight amount of grinds into the curds. Alternatively, making a coffee salt or sugar and using those in a varieties of dishes would work well. The possibilities are endless.

So, how do you cook with coffee and how does your interest in coffee inspire and inform your cooking?