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Drink

French Coffee

A beverage made by steeping ground coffee in boiling water, served with a cocoa and sugar mixture mixed with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

French Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Brew the coffee

  1. Grind the coffee very fine.

  2. Scald a French coffee pot and keep it warm on the stove.

  3. Place the coffee in the upper strainer and slowly pour boiling water over it.

  4. Replace the lid and let it steep for about 3 minutes.

  5. For stronger coffee, pour a cup or two over the coffee a second time.

Make the cocoa and serve

  1. To make cocoa, mix 4 teaspoons of cocoa with 8 teaspoons of sugar.

  2. Add 1 cup of boiling water and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add 1 cup of milk to the cocoa mixture and serve.

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 + cocoatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Ground coffee
Provides the main coffee flavor, extracted by hot water as it steeps.
Boiling water
Extracts flavor from the coffee and dissolves the cocoa and sugar.
Cocoa
Adds chocolate flavor and a deeper, slightly bitter note to the drink.
Sugar
Sweetens the cocoa and balances its bitterness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the coffee's bitterness.

The step that matters

Pour the water slowly over the coffee. Pouring slowly and evenly wets all the grounds gently so they extract evenly. Pouring too fast can channel water through and leave the brew weak or uneven.

“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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