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 ↓
Noodles for Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, combine the egg with enough sifted flour to form a dough.
Knead in a little salt.
Roll the dough as thin as a wafer and dredge with flour.
Dry and cut
Spread the rolled dough out to dry, turning frequently.
Once nearly dry, roll it up tightly.
Slice off thin strips from the ends and shake them loose.
Cook in soup
Add the strips to the soup and boil for fifteen minutes.
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.
- Sifted flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body and chew once cooked.
The step that matters
Drying the rolled dough. The dough must dry evenly while turned often; if it stays damp in places, those strips may stick together or cook unevenly in the soup.
“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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