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 ↓
Ellen's Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Stir the ground coffee, egg, and cold water together in a bowl.
Add 1 pint of boiling water and bring to a boil.
Add another pint of boiling water and let it sit to settle before serving.
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 coffee flavor and body that the brew is built on.
- Egg
- Its proteins bind the coffee grounds, helping them clump and settle so the brew comes out clearer.
The step that matters
Letting the coffee settle. The egg and grounds must have time to sink and bind together after the boiling water is added. Serving too soon leaves fine grounds suspended in the cup, making the coffee cloudy and gritty.
“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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