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 the ground coffee, boiling water, egg white, and crushed eggshell in a pot.
Stir well and add the cold water to help clarify.
Boil the mixture for about 15 minutes.
Let it stand for a few minutes to settle.
Pour the coffee into a well-scaled coffee pot and serve.
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.
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Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 white
- Binds to fine grounds as it cooks, helping them clump so the liquid clarifies.
- Crushed eggshell
- Adds calcium that helps settle fine grounds out of the brew.
- Ground coffee
- Provides the flavour and aroma that the brewed liquid carries.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture for about 15 minutes. Boiling extracts flavour from the grounds and lets the egg white coagulate around them. Boiling too briefly leaves the coffee muddy, while the settling time afterward lets the grounds drop out.
“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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