Name: Making Coffee
Ingredients: roasted coffee berries; boiling water; isinglass (optional); fish skin (optional); egg white (optional)

Why it works: Fish and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,782 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Making Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Grind the roasted coffee berries just before making coffee.
Heat the coffee pot by rinsing it with boiling water.
Pour boiling water over the ground coffee and let it steep for up to 10 minutes.
To clarify, add a small piece of isinglass, fish skin, or a spoonful of egg white if desired.

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.

Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,782 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Coffee + fishtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together76 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,239 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).