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 ↓
Making Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Use a patent pot or a cloth sack for brewing coffee.
Add 1 teaspoon of coffee powder for each person to the pot.
Pour in ½ pint of boiling water for each person.
If using, add a whole egg or crushed egg shells for flavor.
Add the codfish skin
Use washed and dried codfish skin.
Moisten it with cold water.
Add it to the pot.
Brew and serve
Boil the mixture for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Reduce heat and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes.
Add the remaining boiling water 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
- Coffee powder
- Supplies the main flavor and aroma as its compounds dissolve into the hot water.
- Egg
- Helps settle the grounds and clear the brew.
The step that matters
Reduce heat before simmering. Keeping the mixture at a gentle simmer rather than a hard, continuous boil limits bitter compounds being extracted from the grounds and helps the grounds settle cleanly.
“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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