Chicory Root Vietnamese Iced Coffee
Growing up in my parent’s Vietnamese restaurant, I used to watch my mom and dad make slow drip iced coffee with condensed milk. It was a slow and aromatic process that took three times as long to make as to consume.
The key ingredient seemed to be the Cafe du Monde coffee they used. It's a New Orleans-style coffee and chicory blend. The distinct orange-yellow tin doesn’t look like it has changed much over the decades. This chicory & coffee blend was sandwiched into a Vietnamese coffee filter, which is basically two steel filters that screwed together to compress the coffee. I always thought of it as a poor man's version of espresso. The tighter you screwed the filters together, the stronger the brew, but the longer it took to brew.
Recently, we had some chicory in our back yard that just went bananas. It started falling over and shading out some of our herbs, so it was time to get rid of it. Typically, chicory is harvested in the fall, but ours, pulled in mid-June, had a large, fleshy taproot. This may or may not be typical of wild chicories- ours was very clearly a monster- but it may be worth seeking the plant out earlier in the season, when it is easily identifiable by its bright blue flowers.
I decided to use the chicory root to try for a homemade version of the Cafe du Monde coffee that I grew up with. Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk was the end goal.
The chicory has a bitter chocolate aroma, earthy with a hint of sweetness. There is a long standing tradition of using chicory as a coffee substitute in times of scarcity. How this chicory and coffee blend became a staple of Vietnamese culture is a great example of food assimilation, scarcity, and adaptation.
Chicory grows wild everywhere. The blue flowers are distinct and easy to locate. You'll find it on field edges and it’s often mixed into food plots.
We mix the roasted chicory and coffee at a 1:4 ratio. You could use unsweetened condensed milk in this recipe, but you wouldn't get the full effect. The thick, viscous sweetness is key to taming the added bitterness of the chicory while allowing the earthy and nutty flavors to shine.
This is a warm weather treat after being outside all day. We’ve been making a few batches of iced coffee the night before we go fishing, and keeping it ice cold in an insulated canteen for long days on the water. This stuff is strong and due to its sweetness, it's easy to drink it all really fast. If you're sensitive to caffeine, take it easy.
Chicory Root Vietnamese Iced Coffee
Prep time: 5 hours inactive, 20 minutes active
Ingredients:
Chicory root, brushed clean
Dark roast coffee, ground fine
Sweetened condensed milk
Vietnamese coffee filter
Method
Trim the chicory roots and brush off any dirt. Peel them and roughly chop them up. Pulse them a few times in a blender to break them up some more.
Spread the chicory on a sheet pan and bake at 200F for ~2.5 hours until they feel dry and brittle. This step is simply to dehydrate the roots a little before roasting. Then, roast them at 350F for 45-100 minutes until they are lightly brown and fragrant. Once they cool down, use your blender on the grain setting to grind them into a fine grind, similar to fine grind for drip coffee.
Mix chicory and coffee at a 1:4 ratio.
Put 4 tbsp of the coffee and chicory blend in the vietnamese coffee press and shake lightly to level it out. Tighten the top filter all the way down and then back it off half a turn.
Put 2 tbsp sweetened condensed milk in a pint glass. Place the coffee maker on top and pour in very hot water (just under boiling). Cover with the lid and allow to drip. Top it off with another half filter’s worth of water and allow to drip. Stir and adjust sweetness. Add in ice.
