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
Prepare
Mix the egg white with cold water and beat with a fork.
Add the ground coffee and stir until well combined.
Scald the coffee pot, then add the prepared coffee mixture.
Boil and settle
Pour in the boiling water, cover the spout, and boil for 5 minutes.
Quickly pour in the cold water and let it stand for 3 minutes to settle.
Strain the coffee into a hot pot or have a strainer ready at the table.
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 body of the brew, extracted by the boiling water.
- Egg white
- Binds fine grounds so they clump and settle, leaving the coffee clearer.
- Boiling water
- Extracts flavor from the coffee grounds during the boil.
The step that matters
Quickly pour in the cold water. Adding cold water right after boiling drops the temperature and helps the grounds sink, so the coffee clarifies. Pouring slowly or late lets grounds stay suspended and cloud the brew.
“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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