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To Make Good Coffee

A coffee prepared by mixing egg and shell with coffee grounds, then boiling and clarifying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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To Make Good Coffee

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 ↓

To Make Good Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Smash the egg and its shell into the dry coffee and stir in a pot.

  2. Boil the water and pour it over the coffee mixture.

  3. Allow the mixture to boil.

  4. Pour it back and forth between two pots once or twice.

  5. Add a little cold water to clarify; the shell will sink to the bottom with the grounds.

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. Coffee + eggtop 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

Coffee
Provides the main flavour and aroma of the brewed drink.
Egg
Its white and shell bind fine grounds and help clarify the brewed coffee.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water to clarify. Cold water cools the surface so the egg and shell fragments and fine grounds sink rather than staying suspended. Adding it too early or too little can leave the coffee cloudy and gritty.

“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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