Wednesday, January 13, 2010

A Sip of Fabulous! - Gourmet Flavored Coffee

By Veronica Carrillo

British food is known worldwide for it's class, variety and healthy ingredients. The dishes prepared by British chef's and housewives are both nutritious and nourishing. For those of you who have yet had the opportunity to experience gourmet at its best, here is my list of the Top Ten British Dishes. Beans on toast. One of the all time great dishes, even if the preparation is a bit tricky and calls for some experience. First the beans have to be Heinz. They must be heated just right - luke warm. For the toast I suggest Wonderbread. To get perfect results it is important to burn the toast only on one side.

Start by jazzing up some of the staple foods you should keep in their kitchen. These foods can be the basis of healthy cooking whether you are gluten intolerant or not. Rice is an important place to start. You will of course want to choose a type of rice that is less processed, one that is whole grain. Not only is whole grain rice more nutritious, but it also has more flavor. Lundberg has been a big producer of rice and rice products in California for decades. They have many interesting rice mixtures.

Scones. No traditional dish has had to suffer more abuse than the English scone. The rumor that Queen Victoria used to throw scones at her servants when she was unamused with their behavior is entirely false. Historians are now of the opinion that she only ever threw them at politicians and children under the age of four who refused to be seen and not heard. Bangers and mash. Yet another example of the great culinary invention at its best. Chef Blacktooth from Reading confided in me that the secret of the preperation of this dish is in the angle of the sausages which must form an inverted V in memory of Winston Churchill who commissioned this dish for a victory election celebration in 1945. Though Churchill lost the election, England gained a precious addition to its menu.

The second secret to the perfect cup of java, is grinding your own beans. It's commonplace for people to buy pre-ground beans. But your cup of coffee will taste so much better when you grind your beans yourself. Also, when storing your beans, prior to grinding, you need to make sure that you keep them airtight to preserve their flavor. You should take care in storing pre-ground beans as well and make sure to keep either type in a plastic container and avoid metal as the beans can pick up a metallic taste.

The third factor in creating the best gourmet flavored coffee cup, is to make sure you coffee maker clean at all times. It helps in maintaining a good flavour. That means that every so often, wash your coffee maker and de-scale it as deposits from the water can create a crust of lime within the coffee maker.

Fish and Chips. This is undoubtedly the number one British traditional gourmet dish of all time. Historically fish and chips were always wrapped in the Evening Standard but in recent years new varieties of the dish called for the use of The Mirror and even The News of the World . Several trendy Fish and Chip shops, situated in the area of Piccadilly Circus, offer a daily variety of the classic format wrapped in page six of The Sun.

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