Why it works: Coffee and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,239 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Make Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the coffee
Roast the coffee until it is an even, rich brown.
Do not grind the coffee too fine.
Brew
In a coffee boiler, combine the ground coffee, egg white, and just enough cold water to mix.
Pour boiling water over the mixture.
For six tablespoons of coffee, use three pints of water and boil for twenty minutes.
Set aside and add one teacup of cold water to settle the grounds.
Transfer the coffee to the urn.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,239 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ground coffee
- Provides the flavour and aroma that the brewed coffee carries.
- Egg white
- Its proteins bind to the grounds and help clarify the brewed coffee.
The step that matters
Set aside and add cold water to settle the grounds. Cold water lowers the temperature and helps loose grounds sink, so the coffee pours clear instead of cloudy. Letting it rest undisturbed before transferring keeps the grounds behind.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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