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Egg Balls for Chicken Broth

Small egg and chicken mixture balls served in chicken broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Egg Balls for Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped chicken, black pepper, coarse sea salt, butter, and egg. Mix until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into marble-sized balls.

  3. Roll the balls in a small amount of flour.

Serve

  1. Drop the balls into the chicken broth a few minutes before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 chicken and butter into a mixture that holds together as balls.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the balls tender and moist.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the dumplings.
Flour
Light coating on the outside that helps keep the balls from sticking together.

The step that matters

Dropping the balls into the broth. The balls are fragile and cooked only enough to set. Adding them too early or boiling hard can break them apart or make them tough, so add them a few minutes before serving at a gentle simmer.

“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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