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 ↓
Swedish Noodles
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
Beat the egg with a pinch of salt until frothy.
Work in enough sifted flour to form a firm, smooth, elastic paste.
Roll out the paste on a floured board until as thin as writing paper.
Slip a floured cloth under the paste and cover it to roll thinner.
Cut and fry
Cut the paste into rounds using a thimble, folding it to cut two discs at a time.
Heat a saucepan of deep boiling lard.
Drop the discs into the boiling lard; they will swell into golden balls in about a minute.
Skim them out, drain on brown paper, and add to soup.
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 paste and adds richness and structure to the dough.
- Sifted flour
- Forms the structure of the paste, giving it firmness and elasticity once rolled.
- Deep boiling lard
- Fries the thin discs quickly so they puff and turn golden and crisp.
The step that matters
Frying the discs in boiling lard. The lard must be fully hot before the discs go in. Hot fat seals the thin paste at once, so the discs puff and turn golden; cooler fat lets them soak up grease and stay flat and heavy.
“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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