Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 6, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba <§> A A C M K PAGE C3 ■e- i ■ i ■ WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2020 • WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMARTS • LIFE I FOOD C 3 TIM CARMAN / THE WASHINGTON POST Dalgona Coffee, the latest Instagram sensation, features an airy layer of coffee and sugar froth suspended over milk. Try your hand at the coffee drink that's enjoying pandemic popularityMay the froth be with you TIM CARMAN MY hands are shaking as I prepare a second batch of dalgona coffee, the quarantine-chic drink and the latest piece of evidence that we have no idea what to do with ourselves during a pandemic. The cause of my shakes is no surprise: My first dalgona coffee, a sweet and frothy South Korean drink, included two packets of Starbucks Via Instant coffee, which amounts to 270 milligrams of caffeine or more than your basic tall cup of mud from the corporate mermaid. Granted, I was already a shot of espresso and a pour-over into my day when I started sipping on this coffee drink, but there’s no denying the wallop packed into a dalgona, which likely explains at least part of its appeal. Now here’s the important part: My first try at a dalgona was a failure. In an attempt to reduce the amount of sugar and caffeine in the drink, I halved what has increasingly become the to-go recipe: I used 15 ml (1 tbsp) each of instant coffee, sugar and boiling water, instead of the standard 30 ml (2 tbsp). You’re supposed to be able to mix these ingredients in a bowl until they become fluffy, sort of a cross between pudding and whipped cream. Maybe I wasn’t patient enough, but after 10 minutes with a hand mixer, I couldn’t get the ingredients to gel into anything better than a sticky, semi-foamy mass. I spooned the mixture atop a glass with ice and two per cent milk and took a sip. Strands of the dalgona goo clung to my moustache. I felt like I was trying to suck liquid through a layer of partially melted toffee. Even though there are similar drinks in other parts of the world — phenti hui on the Indian subcontinent, frappe in Greece — dalgona coffee became something of a sensation in South Korea in the weeks after actor Jung Il-woo took part in a mukbang segment in January on the popular show Stars’ Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant. The look on Jung’s face after one sip of dalgona coffee — sheer hammy shock and awe — is pure gold. But the drink really took off after South Korea adopted social-distancing practices to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. As part of the campaign, officials recommended that people keep in touch with each other “by using social media measures instead of meeting them personally.” According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, South Koreans, in their forced isolation, turned to making and sharing videos of dalgona coffee, named after a popular street candy. A mixture of melted sugar and baking soda, it’s a riff on honeycomb toffee. All my attempts at dalgona coffee were sweet. You can find recipes that suggest you decrease the amount of sugar, but I don’t recommend them if you’re using the medium-roast Colombian beans processed into Starbucks Via Instant coffee. I hate to sound like a snob, but when I tried the Via coffee straight, it tasted likeDALGONA COFFEE 30 ml (2 tbsp) instant coffee 30 ml (2 tbsp) sugar About 250 ml (1 cup) milk Place the instant coffee and sugar in a glass bowl, along with two tablespoons of boiling water, and combine with a hand mixer until creamy and airy, about 4 to 5 minutes. It will take longer if you mix by hand. Fill a coffee cup or, for better visual appeal, a rocks glass with ice and your preferred amount of cold milk. For a hot drink, you can warm the milk first. Spoon the dalgona mixture atop the milk. Take picture to share on Instagram. Mix the ingredients together. Enjoy. dirt, burned rubber and imminent death. Via Instant, at least this version, is to coffee what Jaws 3-D is to cinema. Two hours after I took that single sip, I can still taste that tire fire in the back of my throat. You need all the sugar you can find to counteract the flavour. I fiddled with a number of different approaches to dalgona coffee, but the only combination that frothed properly was the increasingly standardized recipe. You can’t outsmart the internet. You also can’t stop the caffeine shakes that follow. — Washington Post Filtered coffee better for heart health: study NANCYCLANTON COFFEE fuels early risers and night owls, and during coronavirus isolation many people are brewing their own drinks at home. A recent study shows only one problem with that: If you use a French press, you aren’t filtering your coffee well enough. “Our study provides strong and convincing evidence of a link between coffee brewing methods, heart attacks and longevity,” study author Dag S. Thelle, a professor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, said in a press release. “Unfiltered coffee contains substances which increase blood cholesterol. Using a filter removes these and makes heart attacks and premature death less likely.” The research was published recently in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology. Thelle discovered 30 years ago that drinking coffee was linked to “bad” LDL cholesterol to such an extent it was likely “to have detrimental consequences for heart health.” Experiments identified the bad substances in coffee and found they could be removed using a filter. A cup of unfiltered coffee contains about 30 times the concentration of the lipid-raising substances compared to filtered coffee. “We wondered whether this effect on cholesterol would result in more heart attacks and death from heart disease,” Thelle said. So, over the course of 20 years, Using a French press to make coffee means pressing your luck with high choleseterol. Thelle conducted a study on on a representative sample of the Norwegian population: 508,747 healthy men and women ages 20 to 79. Participants completed a questionnaire on the amount and type of coffee consumed. During those 20 years, “46,341 participants died. Of those, 12,621 deaths were due to cardiovascular disease. Of the cardiovascular deaths, 6,202 were caused by a heart attack,” the press release states. The study found that drinking filtered coffee was safer than no coffee at all. Filtered coffee was linked with a 15 per cent reduced risk of death from any cause during followup. “For death from cardiovascular disease, filtered brew was associated with a 12 per cent decreased risk of death in men and a 20 per cent lowered risk of death in women compared to no coffee. The lowest mortality was among consumers of one to four cups of filtered coffee per day,” the press release states. The study also found that unfiltered coffee was worse than filtered brew for death from any cause, death due to cardiovascular disease and deaths from heart attacks. “Our analysis shows that this was partly because of the cholesterol-increasing effect of unfiltered coffee,” Thelle said. —Atlanta Journal-Constitution GRETCHEN MCKAY/PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE This one-skillet dish can be made ahead and served at room temperature. Easy, cheesy brunch dish perfect for Mother's Day GRETCHEN MCKAY NOTHING beats a one-skillet meal for ease of preparation on special occasions. This cheesy spinach pie can be made ahead of time and served at room temperature, and it’s also terrific on a buffet table right out of the oven. Make sure the phyllo dough is properly thawed so it unrolls without tearing. If little hands are helping to make this for Mother’s Day, they’ll get a kick out of squeezing the moisture out of the spinach. For a complete meal, serve it with grilled or fried sausage links.SKILLET SPINACH PIE 850 g (30 oz) frozen spinach, thawed 75 ml (5 tbsp) unsalted butter 1 small yellow onion, minced 500 ml (2 cups) whole-milk ricotta cheese 4 large eggs, lightly beaten 80 ml (1/3 cup) crumbled feta cheese 45 ml (3 tbps) chopped fresh dill Juice of 1 lemon 5 ml (1 tsp) kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 6 sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed Preheat oven to 190 C (375 F). Place spinach in the centre of a clean kitchen towel, fold up edges and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. (A perfect job for kids!) In a 25-cm (10-inch) cast-iron skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Transfer 30 ml (2 tbsp) butter to a small bowl. Add minced onion to the skillet and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the pan cool slightly, then stir in spinach, ricotta, eggs, feta, dill, lemon juice, salt and a few grinds of pepper. Lay first sheet of phyllo dough over the spin-ach-ricotta mixture in the skillet and brush the top with some of the reserved melted butter. One at a time, layer remaining five sheets, brushing each one with butter. Rotate and scrunch each sheet slightly so edges are offset and the top is ruffled. Transfer pie to oven and bake until it's golden brown and heated through, about 35 minutes. Serves 8. Source: Feeding a Family: A Real-Life Plan for Making Dinner Work by Sarah Waldman (Roost Books, April 2017, $35) —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette On our Season 30 finale Manitoba Beef is "Dressed To Impress". Recipes include: Beef Kare Kare, Peking Pot Roast and Korean Braised Short Ribs. Thanks for staying home and watching our milestone season, and thanks for your continued commitment to supporting local farms and local foods, especially during these unprecedented times. Stay well Manitoba! We'll see you in September. Until then, you can find full episodes, exclusive behind the scenes content and all the recipes on our website £ MANITOBA Local Farms Local Foods Brought to you in part by MANITOBA BEEF PRODUCERS *.y LIQUOR = IVIART no Tune in to Manitoba's most watched cooking series Saturday at 6:30pm on CTV -e- -e- C_03_May-06-20_FP_01.indd C3 2020-05-05 5:03 PM I ;