I was flipping through channels and just noticed the new episode of Iron Chef was using coffee as the secret ingredient for tonite. I saw some Francis machines in the back, but I have no idea what kind of dishes they are going try to pull off.....should be interesting. Anyone else watching?

TTBOOK, no one used any espresso machine -- not that I saw, anyway. Since Mario Batali is/was a spokesperson for Francis!Francis!, the fact these machines were present wasn't a big surprise, but all I saw being used were large French Press pots, and some sort of automatic drip machine. Much of the coffee was used in bean form (whole and ground), and Cat Cora used also used a coffee extract.

The only grinders I saw in use were several black Krups blade grinders.

Cheers,
Jason

Missed that one. I will have to see if it comes up in rerun soon. The only cooking I have done with coffee was ice-cream and brownies.

that is one hour of time i cant get back.

it was very pointless they acted like idiots about being wired on caffeine.

they only had one whirly blade grinder on each side.

they made coffee that was "grown in florida".

hmm what else. one whirly blade grinder per side!!! WTF!!

it was lamehole.

jon

RegulatorJohnson wrote:that is one hour of time i cant get back.

it was very pointless they acted like idiots about being wired on caffeine.

they only had one whirly blade grinder on each side.

they made coffee that was "grown in florida".

hmm what else. one whirly blade grinder per side!!! WTF!!

it was lamehole.

jon

Cracked me up!!! no need to say more,,,Thanks, Jon!

Grown in Florida? Now that is new.

RegulatorJohnson wrote:they only had one whirly blade grinder on each side.

Actually, there was one shot of a sous chef using two Krups blade grinders at the same time, by pushing down on the tops with his palms.

I wonder how much more amazing the flavor would have been if they knew how to mix well made shots of espresso into their dishes.

I was amazed at how many dishes they were just tossing a bunch of coffee beans into the pan or pot. The coffee beans were being sprinkled like salt into the pans and pots. I wonder how much of that flavor actually made it into the food.

That coffee smoked scallops sounded good. I still don't know how she did that. Somehow she used the coffee beans like smoking wood and smoked the scallops.

I still have it on my DVR to watch again sometime.

Coffee beans are mostly cellulose (wood) so there is no reason you could not use them as a smoking agent. Ever see a JavaLog? Fireplace log made from ground coffee.

fwiw, I LOVED that episode. Oringer blew Cat Cora out of the water. Cat was the one who used a "Florida" coffee (yes it exists, but gotta think it's low-grown robusta since I don't recall any mountains down there).

Whatever one thinks of using the whirly blades and not (to our knowledge) utilizing specific coffees to deliver specific flavors (e.g. Harrar for berry would be obvious), it was one hell of a performance by both. Getting folks to this step - using coffee as an ingredient, which implies it's an actual food crop - is a pretty big deal no matter how you look at it.

I highly suggest that anyone who missed it catch it the next time around.