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Egg Dumplings for Soup

Egg dumplings prepared by dropping batter into soup and boiling until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Egg Dumplings for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

First batter

  1. In a bowl, combine ½ pint of milk with 2 well-beaten eggs.

  2. Add enough wheat flour to create a smooth, thick batter without lumps.

  3. Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter into boiling soup.

Second batter and cook

  1. For the second method, mix 1 cup of sour cream and 1 cup of sour milk.

  2. Add 3 well-beaten eggs (whites and yolks separately), 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of dissolved baking soda.

  3. Stir in enough flour to make a very stiff batter.

  4. Drop spoonfuls of this batter into the broth and boil for 20 minutes, or until no raw dough shows on the outside.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the dumplings hold their shape while cooking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and sour cream acid to lighten the dumplings as they cook.
Sour cream
Adds richness and moisture, and its acidity works with the baking soda.
Sour milk
Supplies acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the dough.
Wheat flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that sets the dumpling dough.

The step that matters

Boiling the second batter. The dumplings must cook through in simmering liquid. Boiling for the full time sets the starches and proteins so the centre is no longer raw dough, and drops that are crowded or boiled too hard can break apart or turn dense.

“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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