Name: Coffee
Ingredients: 1 heaping tablespoon ground coffee per person; 1 egg; 1 quart boiling water

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 ↓

Coffee

Ingredients

1 heaping tablespoon ground coffee per person
1 egg
1 quart boiling water

Directions

For each person, use a heaping tablespoon of ground coffee, plus a little extra for evaporation.
Stir in an egg with the coffee.
Add 1 quart of boiling water and boil for 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and pour a cupful out of the spout, then back into the pot.
Let it sit warm (but not boiling) for 10 minutes.
Seal the spout with a roll of cloth or paper to keep the flavor.

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.

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 main flavor; its amount sets the strength of the brew.
Egg: Mixed with the grounds, it helps settle fine particles so the coffee looks clearer.

“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.