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Drink

Coffee

A coffee beverage made by boiling water with coffee and an egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Coffee

Why it works: Egg and coffee 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 ↓

Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the coffee pot.

  2. Break and slightly beat the egg.

  3. Dilute the egg with ½ cup of cold water and add 1 cup of coffee.

  4. Pour the mixture into the coffee pot.

Make the coffee

  1. Add 6 cups of boiling water and stir thoroughly.

  2. Place the pot in front of the fire and boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Add ½ cup of cold water and place on the back of the stove for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve at 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.

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. Egg + coffeetop 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

Egg
Egg white coagulates as it heats, trapping grounds so the coffee runs clear.
Coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water and resting the pot on the back of the stove. Cold water and a gentle, undisturbed rest let the egg coagulate and the grounds settle, which clarifies the coffee. Stirring or boiling hard at this stage can break up the egg network and leave the coffee cloudy.

“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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