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 ↓
Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Stir the ground coffee with the egg and part of the shell in a bowl.
Add ½ cup of cold water and transfer to a coffee boiler.
Brew
Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the mixture.
As it rises and begins to boil, stir it down with a spoon.
Boil hard for 10 to 12 minutes.
Remove from heat and pour out a cup of coffee, then pour it back into the coffee pot.
Place the coffee pot on the back of the stove to keep hot without boiling for about 5 minutes.
Serve
Serve hot with good cream and lump sugar.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,339 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,344 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Egg
- Its proteins bind to the grounds as they cook, helping them settle and clarify the brew.
- Ground coffee
- Provides the main flavor and aroma, extracted into the hot water during boiling.
The step that matters
Boil hard for 10 to 12 minutes. Boiling extracts flavor from the grounds, but over-extraction makes coffee bitter. Timing must be watched, and the egg-and-grounds mixture should be allowed to settle before pouring so the coffee comes out clear.
“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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