This week’s challenge was to make a Pharisäer (Pharisee), a coffee and rum drink from the North Sea coastal area of Germany. There’s a cute story that goes along with the recipe, that the residents put whipped cream on top of the spiked coffee to “hide the sin” from the preacher. When he discovered their deception, he cried, “Oh you pharisees!”
First thing I did was to whip the cream until stiff. I only made two cups, one for Rainer and one for myself, so I halved the recipe. This drink should be served in a taller, thinner, coffee cup, like used for Irish coffee, but we don’t have anything like that, so I used the coffee cups that came with the first dish set I ever bought, when I started grad school at Duke. They’re the only pieces of that set that survive (I think the rest might have been banished to grad student usage in Rainer’s institute).
For the strong coffee I used the Carte Noire Columbian blend coffee disks in our Tassimo machine. Carte Noire are the French Tassimo disks, and I find they taste much better than the German Jacobs coffee/espresso discs you get in the stores here. If you’ve got a Tassimo machine, you can order them off the Tassimo website (Carte Noire also has a decaf blend which Jacobs doesn’t).
I put a coffee spoon of sugar into each cup and stirred well. I didn’t have anything measuring out a shot, so I grabbed one of our schnapps glasses, saw it had a line on it, and filled it up to the line with rum, then added this to the coffee.
I split the cream in half and put half in each cup. It didn’t quite cover the coffee, I assume this would look nicer in a more appropriate coffee cup.
Rainer quite enjoyed his Pharisäer, saying it tasted excellent. I found it to be really strong and had to sneak back into the kitchen and add a little cream to the coffee, but then thought it tasted quite good too. I don’t hardly drink at all, so I was buzzing after getting through this cup. The caffeine and alcohol combo are potent. Oliver was very upset that he couldn’t join us in trying this week’s recipe.
Other participants (will be updated throughout the day):
- Stephanie at A Greenville Life
- C N Heidelberg at Heidelbergerin
Next challenge!
Next week we’re doing Kalbshaxn, or veal knuckle. You may need to order this from a butcher, so keep that in mind when you plan your shopping. The week after is Easter, and Rainer says his family typically had lamb at Easter, so I picked out the Harzer Lamm in Buttermilch (Harzer lamb in buttermilk) recipe for that weekend. The recommended side is Thüringer Klöße, but after translating the recipe, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make them at my mother-in-law’s house (I probably could, but I’m not sure I want to without my Cuisinart to grate all those potatoes). So I’ll leave that as an optional recipe. The Easter post will be a bit late, since my in-laws don’t have internet. It should get posted Tuesday night or Wednesday following Easter.
Want to pick a future recipe? Go through the list and let me know which recipes you want to do.
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Yum! I enjoyed this recipe! (and I didn’t think I would – not much into coffee drinks!)
http://agreenvillelife.blogspot.com/2009/03/pharisaer-pharisee-coffee-with-rum.html
Stephanies last blog post..Pharisaer (Pharisee) – Coffee with Rum
Looks delicious! Not to get off the subject but when the Senseo first came out we got one. Now the Tassimo is out, and I’m wondering what the difference is. I’m not much of a coffee drinker so I can’t readily see it. Off the top of my head I’m thinking the Tassimo is more expensive? But do they both do the same thing? Knowing a person usually gets what they pay for and my hubby is a coffee drinker, I’m wondering if we should switch to the Tassimo.
Lisas last blog post..an apostrophe-laden post about furnaces and those who service them
@ Lisa – the latest and greatest around here is the Keurig machine – alot of rave reviews about this – even over the Tassimo and Senseo. Another to take a look at!
Stephanies last blog post..Pharisaer (Pharisee) – Coffee with Rum
@stephanie: I like that you tried it with different rums. I had wondered about whether the type of rum made a difference, and now I know! I haven’t heard of the Keurig, it doesn’t seem to have made it to Europe (yet!).
@lisa: I am much less into coffee than Rainer and I got him the Tassimo for his birthday last year. Since then, I have become a coffee fiend. The issue with the machines is that the cost for the machine is low (compared to an espresso maker), but the cost of the capsules/discs adds up. So if you drink a lot of coffee, an espresso or coffee machine might be the better choice. I picked the Tassimo because it had the best overall ratings (Amazon.de reviews, Stiftung Warentest test, some news program taste test that I saw, etc). I *think*, if I remember right, that the Nescafe rated better in some aspects, but that the Tassimo was more flexible and won the overall ratings. It can make tea, hot cocoa, milk for the cappuccino (it comes in a disc). Honestly, the milk sucks, and tea is easy enough to make with a tea bag, so I wouldn’t pick solely on that basis. I drank the Jacobs stuff for ages and was happy with that, but now that I found the Carte Noire on the website, I won’t be going back (they also have Maestro Lorenzo, the Italian discs, and a Starbucks coffee disc). Also, for milk for lattes, I bought a milk foamer and use that instead of the discs.
Also, a note: I just got back from the butcher shop. I order the Kalbshaxe and it will take till Friday morning to get here, and it will be frozen (they offered that it could be thawed out on the way if I needed to cook Friday), so there’s a four day pre-order time for meat delivery, at least in our village, maybe it’s different in cities and other countries. They also recommended ordering the meat for Easter now, to make sure you get what you want. I went ahead and ordered the leg of lamb. I couldn’t get it deboned, but if I understood her correctly, she can debone it. There was something about me definitely wanting to have the bone for the stock, I think, but it’s not called for in the recipe. Will have to think on this.
http://cndrnh.blogspot.com/2009/03/amiexpats-pharisaeer-challenge.html
Here’s mine! We haven’t ordered the Haxe yet, guess we better get on it!
CN Heidelbergs last blog post..They fixed our Rewe!
those looks yummy. I’m going to try them someday!
Paul Us last blog post..Get Butterfly Marketing for free
@CN: Love that you tried it with tea!
@Paul: Do, they were very yummy!
I’m back around! Here’s my version: http://americanwolpertinger.blogspot.com/2009/03/pharisaer-coffee-cocktail-real-german.html
Looks like yours turned out yummy as well. I used glass tea mugs but you could really use any old tall water glass!
Emily Flechtners last blog post..Pharisäer Coffee Cocktail- Real German Cuisine Challenge
Damon ordered our Haxe yesterday! Good thing too. They said Thursday would be too early, and they don’t have meat delivery on Fridays during Lent. So, Saturday it is!
CN Heidelbergs last blog post..AmiExpat’s Pharisaeer Challenge!
Christina,
Thank you so much for the explanation of the name of this drink. My wife and I traveled in Germany three years ago.
http://davka.org/where/travel/europe2006/hameln.html
We came upon a small specialty food shop in Alsfeld (Hesse). There we found a small bottle of Heimbs Kaffee labeled PHARISÄER. It seems to be a bit of coffee and rum without the cream. I have added a drop or three to my own coffee periodically. I’d never found any other references to it at the time, but now that I search I found your page. I’m fascinated by the etymology of the name for the drink. Can you point me to any “more authoritative” source?
Thank you for your interesting site. I appreciated reading some of the other pages.
`//rite On!
,\\ark Hurvitz
http://www.davka.org
@mark: I just translated the text out of the cookbook we’re using. I did a Google search and found a Wikipedia article (in Germany, but maybe you could use a translation site if you don’t read Germany), that’s the most authoritative source I could find. It tells the same story with a few details thrown in, like who the pastor was that said it. And instead of buying more, why don’t you just add a few drops of rum to the coffee?
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