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Drink

Wheat or Barley Coffee

A beverage made by steeping roasted wheat or barley with egg white in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Wheat or Barley Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brown the wheat or barley thoroughly and grind it.

  2. Mix the ground wheat or barley with the egg white.

Brew

  1. Pour the mixture over 1 quart of boiling water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and steep for 15 minutes.

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. Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 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

Roasted wheat or barley
Provides the roasted, toasty aroma and flavor that stands in for coffee.
Egg white
Helps clarify the brew, binding fine grounds so they settle out of the liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the wheat or barley thoroughly. The roasting develops the color and toasty flavor of the brew, so under-browned grain gives a weak, grassy taste. Even browning matters because pale kernels taste raw.

“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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