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Drink

Proper Use of Coffee

A method for preparing coffee using roasted beans, egg white, clarified butter, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Proper Use of Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Purchase the oldest coffee beans available.

  2. Roast the coffee beans to a light brown color.

  3. Mix the roasted beans with the egg white and clarified butter.

  4. Store the mixture in a dry place.

  5. Grind the coffee beans finely, but not to a floury texture.

Brew

  1. Prepare a clean flannel cloth or double layer of butter cloth for drip coffee.

  2. Tie the cloth over a pot.

  3. Add one heaping teaspoon of freshly ground coffee per cup.

  4. Pour about 1 cup of boiling water over the coffee.

  5. Let it stand for 1 minute.

  6. Pour over the desired amount of additional water.

  7. If using cream, pour it into the cup first.

  8. Add the coffee.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Coffee + beanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together289 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee beans
Provide the main flavor; roasting browns the beans and develops their aroma.
Egg white
Is mixed with the beans, as stated in the record, adding binding to the mixture.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that coats the beans and carries aroma.

The step that matters

Grind the coffee beans finely, but not to a floury texture.. Grind size controls extraction: grounds that are too fine over-extract and turn bitter, while coarse grounds under-extract and taste weak.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, egg, butter, cream):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, egg, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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