Name: To Boast Coffee
Ingredients: raw coffee beans; charcoal

Why it works: Coffee and beans work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 289 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

To Boast Coffee

Ingredients

raw coffee beans
charcoal

Directions

Fill the roasting cylinder halfway with raw coffee beans.
Turn the cylinder slowly over a gentle fire until a strong aromatic smell is emitted.
Increase the speed of turning as the beans heat up to avoid over-coloring.
When the beans are a fine, light, even brown, remove them from the heat.
Spread the roasted coffee quickly on a large dish and cover with a folded cloth until cool.
Store the cooled coffee in canisters or bottles, ensuring they are airtight.

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.

Coffee + beanstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together289 recipes

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

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