Name: Coffee Compound
Ingredients: 1 pound common Santos coffee; ¼ pound chicory; ½ pound cocoa shells

Why it works: Coffee and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Coffee Compound

Ingredients

1 pound common Santos coffee
¼ pound chicory
½ pound cocoa shells

Directions

Prepare and store

Finely grind the coffee, chicory, and cocoa shells.
Mix all the ingredients together and store in a tight tin.

Brew

Use the same quantity as you would for regular coffee and brew it once.

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.

Coffee + cocoatop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together91 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Coffee + chicorytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50 recipes

Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).
Chicory + cocoatop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1 recipe

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee: Provides the main bitter, roasted coffee flavour and aroma of the blend.
Chicory: Adds a bitter, roasted note and body that stretches the coffee flavour.
Cocoa shells: Contribute a mild cocoa-like aroma and a slightly bitter, roasted flavour.