Book Review: The Marley Coffee Cookbook

This review includes a recipe extract from the book, found at the end of the post.

“Coffee rocks the world – and the world loves coffee right back.”

The Marley Coffee Cookbook is Rohan Marley’s personal journey into the world of coffee, full of little stories about his life with his legendary father Bob Marley. In collaboration with Chef Maxcel Hardy and food editor Rosemary Black, Marley created more than a simple recipe book. This is a true celebration of coffee-infused cuisine, making it a must-have for the quintessential coffee lover. A necessity for the foodie in your life who lives and breathes coffee.

“Coffee is the beverage of choice globally. Some 500 billion cups of coffee are consumed annually around the world.”

Hardy’s recipes will guide anyone through ways to infuse food with the flavour of coffee, from mocha to espresso, he’s got it covered. The book has ten chapters, including all the essentials you need to start, from sauces, rubs, blends and salad dressings, to breakfasts (sweet and savoury), family recipes, veggie, meat and seafood, recipes for the grill, salads, drinks, desert. You name it, it’s there.

The Marley Coffee Cookbook covers all sorts of dishes rarely found anywhere else: sweet potato waffles with a pecan coffee syrup, grilled salmon with a coffee, maple, and ginger glaze, fried plantains with coffee sugar, coffee spice blend-marinated lamb ribs with guava BBQ sauce.

The book is about choosing a type or blend of coffee for each dish, bringing harmony to the finished result and how simple it really is to add coffee in such a way to bring out the best in both the savoury and sweet. The recipes are Caribbean-influenced, audacious and lively.

About the authors*:

The founder of Marley Coffee and the son of the legendary Bob Marley, Rohan Marley decided to follow his father’s dream of becoming a farmer. He bought 52 acres of land in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains in 1999. In 2007, he founded Marley Coffee, a business with annual sales that have increased from $300,000 to $14 million in just a few short years.

Marley, who is committed to supporting clean water initiatives and giving back to communities where Marley Coffee sources coffee, is an ambassador to Water Wise Coffee Project, which works to improve water access, protection, and cleanliness in coffee-producing countries around the world. Find out more on www.marleycoffee.com

Founder of Chef Max Miami, a premier catering company that specializes in American, Asian, Caribbean, French, and kosher cuisine, Maxcel Hardy cooks for award-winning hip hop and R&B artists, professional athletes, and dignitaries. He also is the creator of Chef Max Designs, a line of chef’s apparel that puts a modern style on classic chef uniforms.

Hardy is also a philanthropist and founder of the One Chef Can 86 Hunger foundation, In 2014, he joined the Culinary Council for Food Bank for New York City. He finished as a runner-up for The Food Network’s Chopped and has been featured in Arise TV, Bon Appétit, Essence Magazine, Fox 5 Good Day New York, NBC’s thegrio.com, the New York Post, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show and WABC News.

As the longtime food editor of the New York Daily News, Rosemary Black supervised nutrition and food coverage. Black has been a senior editor at Everyday Health, a leading digital media company that produces content on health and wellness. She is currently an Everyday Health contributor, reporting on medical news, health, and nutrition. Rosemary has also been the food editor of Dash, a monthly cooking magazine from Parade magazine.

She is the author of four other books: Cookies Year-Round, The Kids’ Holiday Baking Book, Cooking with Joy (co-written with Joy Bauer), and Bubby’s Brunch (co-written with Ron Silver).

Coffee Bean–Infused Pumpkin Soup

Yield: 4 servings

Blues, a pure-tasting coffee with a deep, earthy taste, nicely balances the flavor of the pumpkin here. If fresh pumpkins are not available, substitute two cans pure pumpkin purée (not pie filling). Add the purée to the pot with the other cooked and puréed vegetables. Serve as a first course, or any time you want a warming, comforting soup.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons (28 g) coconut oil
2 medium-size sugar pumpkins, quartered,
seeds removed and reserved
1 large sweet potato, peeled and quartered
¼ yellow onion, diced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 sprig fresh thyme, chopped
1 bay leaf
1½ cups (355 ml) vegetable stock or broth
¼ cup (60 ml) brewed Talkin’ Blues coffee
½ cup (120 ml) heavy cream
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Toasted pumpkin seeds, for garnish (see Tip)

Directions

Preheat a large saucepan or a stockpot over medium heat until very hot. Add the coconut oil, pumpkins, sweet potato, and onion. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the vegetables begin to caramelize.

Stir in the ginger, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, vegetable stock, and coffee. Simmer for 35 minutes, or until the pumpkins and sweet potato are tender. Working in batches, purée the soup in a food processor, returning each batch to the saucepan once it is smooth. Reheat the mixture over medium-low heat.

Whisk in the heavy cream and season the soup with salt and pepper. Top each serving with toasted pumpkin seeds before serving.

To toast the pumpkin seeds, wash them very well, discard any sticky material clinging to them, and dry the seeds. Toss with a little coconut oil, salt, and pepper. Roast in a preheated 375°F (190°C, or gas mark 5) oven for 10 minutes, or until crisp.

Authors: Rohan Marley, Maxcel Hardy, Rosemary Black
Format: Hardback, 208 Pages
ISBN: 9781631593116
Illustrations: 150 color photos
Size: 8.5 in x 10 in / 215.9 mm x 254 mm

The Marley Coffee Cookbook by Rohan Marley. Published by Quarry Press, an imprint of The Quarto Group (£16.99). Out now.

The Marley Coffee Cookbook was kindly sent by the publisher for review.

All images and recipe extracts are used with permission of the publisher.

*Information about the authors is extracted from the press release.

This is not a sponsored post.

Information about how you can purchase the book can be found on Amazon.

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