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Drink

For Boiled Coffee

A boiled coffee made by mixing eggs, water, and coffee, then boiling and clarifying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

For Boiled Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald a granite coffee pot.

  2. Wash the eggs, break them, and beat slightly.

  3. Dilute the eggs with 1 cup of cold water, add crushed egg shells, and mix with the coffee.

  4. Pour the mixture into the coffee pot and add the boiling water, stirring thoroughly.

Brew and clear

  1. Place the pot on the front of the range and boil for 3 minutes.

  2. Cover the spout with soft paper to prevent aroma escape.

  3. Stir and pour some coffee into a cup to remove grounds from the spout, then return it to the pot and repeat.

  4. Add the remaining cold water to clear the coffee.

  5. Place the pot on the back of the range for 10 minutes without boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream (or milk) and sugar.

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.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Coffee
Provides the main coffee flavour and aroma.
Eggs
Egg whites and shells collect fine grounds, clearing the liquid as it settles.

The step that matters

Returning the coffee to the pot after the spout is cleared. Pouring coffee out and back repeatedly removes grounds that collect at the spout. Skipping this leaves grit in the cup, since grounds that stay suspended in the liquid do not settle out on their own.

“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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