Home › Pickles and Catsups › Boiled Coffee
Boiled Coffee
Allow a dessertspoon to each person and one for the coffee-pot; put the coffee in the bowl with the white of an egg and a little cold water, stir all together thoroughly , then put it in the coffee-pot, pour boiling water over it and place on the stove; cover the spout of the coffee-pot to preserve the aroma; as soon as it boils up set it on the back of the stove to steep and settle. In serving coffee pour it over the cream and sugar in the cups. If milk is used heat it.
This is boiled or "egg" coffee, made in an open pot rather than a filter, and it depends on two things: a coarse grind and never letting it actually boil hard.
- The hinge: one brief boil, then off the heatThe hinge: one brief boil, then off the direct heat -- "as soon as it boils up" means the moment the surface heaves, the pot goes to the back of the stove. Coffee held at a rolling boil turns bitter and flat; the steeping and settling at the cooler back of the range is where the strength comes from. The recipe gives no steeping time and no temperature.
- A dessertspoonAbout two teaspoons, or 5-6 g of ground coffee. That is light by modern standards. The extra spoonful "for the coffee-pot" is a common allowance in period recipes, though the recipe does not say what it is for. For a cup you would recognize, closer to two dessertspoons per 6 oz of water is right.
- Grind coarseThere is no filter here, so use a coarse, French-press style grind. Fine or espresso grind will not settle and will slip through into the cup as silt.
- What the egg white doesThe albumen coagulates in the hot water and traps the fine particles and some of the bitter compounds, dragging them to the bottom as a raft. One white is enough for a full pot; some cooks added the crushed shell as well. It is fully cooked by the boiling water, so there is no raw-egg concern.
- Covering the spoutWith a stovetop pot the spout is the chimney. A cork, a folded cloth or a small saucer over it keeps the volatile aromatics in. On a modern hob, a lidded saucepan and a fine strainer at the pouring stage do the same job.
- Settling before pouringDo not stir after the steep. Pour slowly and steadily so the egg raft stays put; a splash of cold water down the side will speed settling if the pot is cloudy.
- Pouring over the creamAdding coffee to the dairy rather than the reverse tempers it and avoids scalded, grainy milk. The instruction to heat milk still holds -- cold milk drops a small cup below drinking temperature.
- YieldThe recipe fixes no pot size and no water quantity: a dessertspoon per person plus one for the pot, and one egg white. For six drinkers that is seven dessertspoons, with boiling water to suit the pot.
Before drip cones and pressurized machines, a great deal of American coffee was simply boiled in an open pot on the range, and the persistent problem was grounds in the cup. Egg white -- and often the crushed shell with it -- was the standard household clarifier, borrowed from the same logic that clears consommé and jelly: the albumen sets, catches the fines, and sinks. The method is closely associated with the upper Midwest, where it survives as "church basement coffee" or Swedish egg coffee and is still made for crowds in large enamel pots. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns, issued its cook book in the early 1910s for exactly this kind of reader: one working over a coal or wood range where "set it on the back of the stove" described a real and reliable temperature zone.