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Drink

Boiled Coffee, No. 1

A method of making coffee by boiling a mixture of ground coffee, egg, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Coffee, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald a granite coffee pot before use.

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine the coffee, beaten egg, and crushed shell.

  3. Add cold water and stir thoroughly.

Brew

  1. Pour the mixture into the coffee pot and add boiling water.

  2. Stuff the spout of the pot with paper.

  3. Boil for 3 minutes, no longer.

  4. Add ½ cup cold water to settle the coffee.

  5. Let it stand on the back of the range for 9 to 10 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Finely ground coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour that is extracted into the brewed drink.
Egg
Its proteins bind to the coffee grounds and help clarify the liquid as it settles.

The step that matters

Boil for 3 minutes, no longer. Extended boiling over-extracts the grounds and makes the coffee bitter. A short boil, followed by settling, extracts flavour while keeping the brew clear and smooth.

“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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