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
Mix the ground coffee with a part or the whole of an egg and enough cold water to moisten it.
Place the mixture in a well-scalded coffee boiler.
Pour in half the amount of boiling water needed, using 1 pint less water than the number of tablespoons of coffee.
Roll a cloth tightly and plug the spout to retain the coffee flavor.
Boil rapidly for 5 minutes, stirring down from the top and sides.
Reduce heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
When ready to serve, add the remaining boiling water.
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 of the drink.
- Egg
- Helps settle the grounds so the finished coffee is clearer.
The step that matters
Boil rapidly for 5 minutes, stirring down from the top and sides. Rapid boiling with stirring keeps the grounds wetted and fully extracted. Stirring the floating grounds back down prevents them from staying dry and under-extracted at the surface, which would leave the coffee weak and uneven.
“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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