Oh yeah which reminds me -- because people have complained about this in the past to me (not here-- but just in case some of you are missing it)
Cafe au lait -- many many people come love this type of coffee after a visit to New Orleans, it is the traditional coffee that is drunk by old New Orleanean families -- and it seems that certain national coffee establishments offer it as a specialty beverage in their establishments.
People order it, think it's good but just not the same as what they loved in New Orleans.
There is a reason for this -- it isn't the same. National coffee houses outside of New Orleans (and those same chain stores inside new orleans) fix cafe au lait as a "latte" but with french roast coffee, and sometimes as a cappucino with frothed cream or half and half (and sometimes milk which is closer).
So for those who love and/or miss cafe au lait here is the recipe as my mother taught me who was taught by her grandmother both long time New Orleaneans :
Cafe au lait (Coffee with Milk):
Coffee with chicory brewed strong (old way of doing this which is still practised by some of the older New Orleaneans at home is to spoon boiling water over the grounds into a pot and keep doing this until it "looked right"-- my wife just does it in a Mr. Coffee but puts more grounds than one would with normal coffee -- when I did it I always used an old fashioned espresso pot that went on top of a stove)
(CDM coffee, Cafe Du Monde Coffe or Community New Orleans Blend are all chicory coffees -- if you cannot get or find chicory coffee, the closest thing to it is strongly brewed "French Roast" coffees -- chicory coffee is more bitter than normal coffee as is french roast but chicory adds a distinct flavor to the new orleans coffee that many people become quite "addicted" to)
Ok now you have strong coffee, time for the milk. You don't just pour milk into the coffee to make Cafe au lait, nor do you froth the milk in an espresso machine-- you have to scald the milk.
Place the milk in a saucepan and scald it. Heat it up until just before it boils.
Now take a coffee mug and HALF fill it with coffee, fill the rest with scalded milk --- add sugar to taste and voila! authentic cafe au lait (because it is a half coffee and half milk recipe is why the coffee is to be brewed strong. People in new orleans have grown so accustomed to this form of coffee brewing that even when they drink coffee black it is still brewed strong).
The above is the way my family used to make cafe au lait at home in New Orleans and everyone else that I knew from there as well. I have seen it done differently in different parts of Louisiana with weird ways of brewing the coffee (including boiling the grounds and adding an egg at the end to capture the grounds) but the two things in common all over french louisiana for cafe au lait are 1) coffee with chicory and 2) scalded milk
Funny how the 2 things necessary for cafe au lait are BOTH missing from national coffee house "cafe au laits" isn't it? No wonder people go "Hmm.. tasted better in New Orleans, wonder if it was the ambience?"
Oh yeah! beignets, I almost forgot a beignet and a mexican sopapilla are almost identical as far as the dough is concerned. I say this because in many places in the USA you CAN get sopapilla mix in the grocery store, but not beignet mix. If you want to make beignets for your cafe au lait, get the sopapilla mix mix according to directions, fry em up and sprinkle powdered sugar on them, they may not rise as much as a beignet but they will be very similar (one other thing ignore the thing about cutting them into triangles, cut them into squares or rectangles for beignets)
Hope you guys can find this post helpful!
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