Why it works: Egg and coffee 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 ↓
Boiled Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a bowl, mix the ground coffee with the egg white and ¼ cup of cold water.
Brew
Transfer the mixture to a scalded coffee pot and pour boiling water over it.
Boil for three minutes, then move to the back of the stove.
Add 2 tablespoons of cold water and let it settle for ten minutes.
Serve
Pour the coffee from the grounds and serve.
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.
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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Egg + coffeetop 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
- Egg white
- Its proteins coagulate as it heats, trapping grounds so the coffee comes out clear.
- Ground coffee
- Provides the coffee flavour and body that the brew extracts into the water.
- Cold water
- Dilutes the mixture and helps the grounds settle after brewing.
The step that matters
Boil for three minutes, then move to the back of the stove. Boiling extracts flavour from the grounds, but keeping it at the back of the stove, below a rolling boil, lets the egg white and grounds clump and sink, which clears the coffee.
“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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