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
Beat the egg until light.
Add a pinch of salt and enough flour to form a stiff dough.
Roll out the dough very thin, like pie crust, and dredge with flour to prevent sticking.
Dry and cut
Let the rolled dough dry on a board for at least an hour.
Roll the dried dough into a tight scroll and slice it into thin strips.
Mix the strips lightly and keep them floured until ready to add to the soup.
Serve
Drop the noodles into the soup shortly before serving to avoid overcooking.
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 cohesive dough and adds richness and tenderness.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough, giving the noodles their body once cooked.
The step that matters
Dropping the noodles into the soup. Thin noodles cook in a few minutes and turn soft and mushy if left too long in hot liquid. Adding them shortly before serving keeps their texture firm.
“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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