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Drink

To Make Coffee

This recipe clarifies coffee by boiling ground coffee with egg white and crushed eggshells, then adding cold water to settle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Make Coffee

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 ↓

To Make Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Combine and boil

  1. Combine the ground coffee, boiling water, egg white, and crushed eggshells in a pot.

  2. Stir well and add the cold water to help clarify.

  3. Boil the mixture for about 15 minutes.

Settle and serve

  1. Let it sit for a few minutes to settle.

  2. Pour the coffee into a pre-warmed coffee pot and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

Ground coffee
Provides the coffee flavor and body that the hot water extracts.
Egg white
Its proteins coagulate when heated, trapping fine grounds and sediment for a clearer liquid.

The step that matters

Let it sit for a few minutes to settle.. After boiling, the grounds and coagulated egg white need to sink undisturbed. Moving or pouring too early stirs them back up and leaves the coffee cloudy.

“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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