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 ↓
A French Chef’s Method of Making Breakfast Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Brew
Mix the ground coffee, raw egg, and cold water in a coffee pot.
Place the coffee pot over the fire and stir occasionally until it reaches boiling point.
Remove the pot from the heat and pour ½ cup of cold water into the spout and top.
Rest and serve
Let the coffee stand for 10 minutes before serving.
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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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 main flavor and aroma, which are extracted into the hot water.
- Raw egg
- Its proteins set as the coffee heats, trapping grounds so the brew comes out clearer.
The step that matters
Pouring cold water into the spout and top after heating. As the pot heats, the egg proteins set and bind the grounds. Adding cold water after removing the pot from the heat helps the grounds settle so the coffee pours clear.
“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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