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Drink

Coffee for Four

A hot coffee beverage prepared with egg, coffee grounds, 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 ↓

Coffee for Four

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

  1. Combine 1 cup of cold water and the egg in a bowl.

  2. Beat the mixture with a fork.

  3. Add the coffee and mix well.

Brew

  1. Transfer the mixture to a white porcelain coffee pot and pour in 3 cups of boiling water.

  2. Cover the pot tightly to retain the aroma.

  3. Place the pot on the stove and bring to a boil, stirring once or twice.

  4. Move the pot to a cooler part of the stove for 2 to 3 minutes.

  5. Add ½ cup of cold water.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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

Egg
As it heats, the egg sets and gathers fine coffee grounds, clearing the brew.
Coffee
Supplies the main flavor and aroma of the drink.

The step that matters

Move the pot to a cooler part of the stove. Boiling vigorously breaks up the egg as it sets, scattering grounds back into the coffee. Holding the pot off a hard boil lets the egg proteins firm into a raft that pulls grounds down and leaves a clearer cup.

“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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