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Drink

French Coffee

A coffee beverage made with chicory, coffee, egg, water, and served with boiling milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

French Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coffee

  1. Mix the ground chicory with the coffee in a pot.

  2. Stir the mixture over the fire until hot.

  3. Crush the egg with the shell and add it to the coffee.

Brew and serve

  1. Pour in the cold water and stir occasionally until scalding hot, but do not boil.

  2. Place the pot at the side of the fire for five minutes or longer.

  3. Serve with boiling milk.

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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Chicory + coffeetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Chicory + milktop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Chicory + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Coffee
Provides the main coffee flavor and aroma in the brewed drink.
Ground chicory
Adds a roasted, slightly bitter flavor and body to the coffee.
Egg (with shell)
Its shell and white bind fine grounds so they settle, clearing the liquid.

The step that matters

Stir until scalding hot, without boiling. Boiling can over-extract bitterness and keep grounds suspended, so the coffee is held just below the boil while it steeps.

“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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