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 ↓
Making Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brew
Mix the ground coffee with the egg or codfish skin and enough cold water to moisten it.
Place the mixture in a well-scalded coffee boiler.
Pour in half the amount of boiling water needed, using one pint less than the number of tablespoons of coffee.
Roll a cloth tightly and stop up the spout to keep in the coffee flavor.
Boil and simmer
Boil for five minutes, stirring down from the top and sides.
Reduce heat and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
Serve
When ready to serve, add the remaining boiling water.
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
- Egg
- Its proteins bind the coffee grounds and help clarify the brew as it cooks.
- Ground coffee
- Provides the main coffee flavor and aroma dissolved into the water.
- Codfish skin
- Acts as an alternative clarifying agent, binding fine grounds so they settle.
The step that matters
Stirring down from the top and sides during the boil. Grounds clinging to the sides or floating on top can stay unextracted or scorch, so stirring them back into the liquid helps the coffee brew evenly and settle.
“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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