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Noodles As a Vegetable

A baked casserole of noodles, milk, eggs, butter, and Swiss herb cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Noodles As a Vegetable

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the noodles in salted water for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

  2. Drain the noodles in a colander.

  3. Warm the milk and stir in the salt.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix them into the milk.

  5. Melt the butter in a separate pan.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a deep pie plate or small pudding pan, layer noodles, milk and egg mixture, butter, and cheese.

  2. Repeat layers until all ingredients are used.

  3. Place the dish in a pan with boiling water and bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Noodles
Form the bulk of the casserole and absorb the milk and egg custard as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the milk into a custard that sets firm when baked.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the noodles and gives a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a tender texture.
Swiss herb cheese
Melts into the custard, adding savoury flavor and body.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath. Baking the dish in a pan of boiling water surrounds it with gentle, steady heat. This keeps the egg custard from curdling or overcooking at the edges before the centre sets.

“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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