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 ↓
Boiled Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Mix the ground coffee with the egg white and a little cold water.
Pour the boiling water over the mixture.
Boil for 15 minutes.
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.
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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
- Ground coffee
- Provides the flavor and aroma that the boiling water extracts.
- Egg white
- Binds the fine grounds as it cooks, helping clarify the coffee.
- Boiling water
- Acts as the solvent that extracts flavor from the ground coffee.
The step that matters
Boil for 15 minutes. Boiling extracts flavor from the grounds, but a longer boil also draws out more bitter compounds. The egg white must cook and coagulate to trap the grounds, so the boil is what clarifies the coffee.
“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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