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Drink

Coffee

A coffee made by mixing ground coffee, egg, and cold water, then boiling with hot water and served with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Coffee

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coffee

  1. In a bowl, stir together the ground coffee, egg, and cold water.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a coffee boiler.

  3. Pour in the boiling water and stir with a spoon.

  4. Boil for 10-12 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Pour out a cup of coffee, then return it to the pot.

  7. Keep it hot on the back of the stove for 5 minutes to settle.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with cream and sugar.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 coffee flavor and body of the brew.
Egg
Its proteins bind to the grounds as they heat, helping clarify the liquid by trapping sediment.
Boiling water
Extracts flavor from the coffee grounds during brewing.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the bitterness of the coffee.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the coffee's bitterness.

The step that matters

Keep the coffee just below a hard boil while it brews. The egg mixture is meant to cling to the grounds and settle them. Boiling vigorously can break up that coagulated mass and cloud the coffee, so it should simmer gently for the stated time.

“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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