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Drink

Coffee

A brewed coffee that may include a boiled egg, served with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Coffee

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 ↓

Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the beans

  1. Roast the coffee beans until chestnut-brown, avoiding a burnt color.

  2. Slightly heat the dry coffee before brewing.

Brew

  1. Boil water and add the roasted coffee beans.

  2. If using, break the small egg into the pot with the coffee.

  3. Boil for 5 to 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Boil milk to a simmer, if cream is not available.

  2. Serve with 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.

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.

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

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

  2. Coffee + beanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together289 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

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

  5. 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

Coffee beans
Provide the coffee flavor and aroma that the brew extracts into the water.
Egg
Clarifies the coffee as it sets, trapping grounds so the drink is less cloudy.

The step that matters

Avoid burning the beans during roasting. Beans roasted past chestnut-brown turn bitter and acrid, because sugars and compounds char and carry burnt flavors into the cup that cannot be removed later.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, egg, milk):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, egg, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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