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Coffee Number Four

A clarified coffee made by adding egg white or crushed eggshells to boiling coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Coffee Number Four

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and wash the coffee beans, then toast them until golden brown.

  2. Grind the coffee as needed.

Brew and clarify

  1. Boil the water, then add the coffee by the spoonful, stirring continuously until it boils.

  2. Add the egg white or crushed eggshells to clarify the coffee.

  3. Boil for ten minutes, then add a little cold water and let it settle.

Serve

  1. Pour the coffee into a pot or urn for serving.

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

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

  2. Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Beans + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white or crushed eggshells
Binds fine grounds and particles so they clump and can be strained out, clearing the coffee.
Coffee beans
Provide the coffee flavor and aroma; toasting deepens browning and roasted notes.
Water
Extracts flavor from the grounds as it boils and carries them through the brew.

The step that matters

Adding the egg white or eggshells. The egg white must be fully mixed in before boiling so it can coagulate and trap fine grounds as it heats. Adding it too late or stirring poorly leaves the coffee cloudy.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, egg. 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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