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Egg Balls for Soup

Egg balls made from boiled egg yolks, flour, salt, and raw egg yolks, dropped into soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Egg Balls for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Take the yolks of six hard-boiled eggs and half a tablespoonful of wheat flour.

  2. Rub them smooth with the yolks of two raw eggs and a teaspoonful of salt. Mix all well together.

  3. Make the mixture into balls.

Cook in the soup

  1. Drop the balls into the boiling soup a few minutes before taking it up.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

533Calories
19 gProtein
6 gFat
96 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Wheatnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

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

Flour and egg 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

Wheat flour
Adds body and helps bind the mixture so the balls hold together.
Raw eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, helping the balls keep their shape.
Hard-boiled eggs
Provide richness and a soft, crumbly texture to the balls.

The step that matters

Dropping the balls into the boiling soup. Raw egg in the mixture sets when heated, which is what holds each ball together. Adding the balls only a few minutes before serving lets them set without overcooking, since prolonged boiling can make them tough or break them apart.

“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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