Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Noodle Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the noodles
Beat the egg with a pinch of salt.
Mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough, then knead it.
Roll the dough very thin and sift a little flour over it.
Roll the sheet into a tight scroll and cut it into slices no thicker than ⅛ inch.
Shake out the noodles and leave them on a floured board.
Cook and serve
Heat the stock in a pot until boiling.
Drop the noodles into the boiling stock and cook for 5 minutes.
Serve hot.
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.
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Binds the flour into a dough and adds richness and structure to the noodles.
- Flour
- Forms the dough's structure, and the gluten it develops gives the noodles their chew.
- Stock
- Supplies the liquid and flavor of the soup in which the noodles cook.
The step that matters
Rolling the dough very thin. Thin sheets cook through quickly in boiling stock and stay tender, while thick pieces stay doughy in the middle. Dusting with flour keeps the sheet from sticking as it is rolled and cut.
“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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