We've reviewed all sorts of special gadgets and methods for making your morning cup of coffee, but what if you're stuck without a coffee pot, a French press, an Aeropress, or a Chemex? Other than running out to the local coffee shop, what are your options? Well, according to the January issue of Gourmet, cowboy coffee is your best bet.
They give a recipe for Coffee Boiled with Eggshells, which has also been known as cowboy coffee or camping coffee, and it's one of the simplest ways to make a brew.
You simply boil the water and coffee grounds with some eggshells, which help clarify the brew. You let it settle then strain or carefully just dip out the liquid coffee, leaving the grounds at the bottom.
Have you ever tried camping coffee? We assume the boiling takes care of any health issues with eggshells but this still sounds fairly primitive. Not to mention strong - sounds like it turns out a cup of mud to keep you in the saddle all day long!
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I live at a base camp for a wilderness expedition foundation for three months every summer, and we make cowboy coffee morning and night -- without the egg shells. The challenge is getting the grounds to settle: a drop of cold water right at the end, and then some serious centrifugal force (applied by swinging the pot a full 360 degrees, over your head and back down again several times -- not for the timid/faint of heart) gets the job done. From experience, you don't want the last cup from a large pot (mouth full of sludge). Best to wait for the next pot to be ready.
view barefootrooster's profile
I'd love to know if anyone has used the eggshells. I've got a bunch of old recipies from my greatgrandma and she writes about using eggshells when making large vats of coffee at the church. I think it is supposed to make the coffee taste less bitter. Might be a Swedish thing.
view madteaparty's profile
Eggshells are also commonly added to coffee in New Orleans.
Too take out the bitterness.
Of coffee that has chicory added.
???
view Slim's profile
I learned to make coffee from Steinbeck, who himself learned "on Bourbon Street from giants in the earth":
"I went into my house and set coffee to cooking, and remembering how Roark Bradford liked it, I doubled the dosage, two heaping tablespoons of coffee to each cup and two heaping for the pot. I cracked an egg and cupped out the yolk and dropped white and shells into the pot, for I know nothing that polishes coffee and makes it shine like that."
That, and "a little chicory for bite".
All in all, a truly outstanding cup of coffee, for those dedicated few.
view ishmael's profile