Name: Egg Dumplings for Soup
Ingredients: ½ pint milk; 2 eggs, well beaten; wheat flour, as needed to make a smooth, thick batter; 1 cup sour cream; 1 cup sour milk; 3 eggs, well beaten (whites and yolks separated); 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water; flour, as needed to make a very stiff batter

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Egg Dumplings for Soup

Ingredients

½ pint milk
2 eggs, well beaten
wheat flour, as needed to make a smooth, thick batter
1 cup sour cream
1 cup sour milk
3 eggs, well beaten (whites and yolks separated)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
flour, as needed to make a very stiff batter

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine ½ pint of milk, 2 beaten eggs, and enough wheat flour to create a smooth, thick batter.
Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter into boiling soup.

Alternative batter and cook

For the alternative method, mix 1 cup of sour cream, 1 cup of sour milk, and 3 beaten eggs (whites and yolks separated).
Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of dissolved baking soda, then mix in enough flour to form a very stiff batter.
Drop spoonfuls of this batter into the broth and boil for 20 minutes, or until no raw dough is visible on the outside.

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.

Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs: Bind the batter and set the dumplings so they hold their shape in the soup.
Wheat flour: Provides the starch and gluten that give the batter body and structure.
Sour cream: Adds fat and richness, giving the dumplings a tender, moist texture.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the dumplings rise and lighten.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that leavens the dumplings.

The step that matters

Boil for the full 20 minutes. Dumplings must cook through in simmering liquid. Stopping early leaves a raw, dense centre, because the starch and egg proteins need sustained heat to set fully.

“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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Egg Dumplings for Soup