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Noodle Soup

A soup made with beef bouillon, noodles, nutmeg, and egg‑based noodles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Noodle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine 1 quart of beef bouillon and 2 teaspoons of salt in a pot.

  2. Add ½ pint of noodles and cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Add a pinch of grated nutmeg to the soup.

Make the noodles

  1. Beat 3 eggs and 3 tablespoons of milk together in a bowl.

  2. Sift flour into a pan, make a well in the center, and stir in the egg and milk mixture to form a stiff dough.

  3. Divide the dough into two parts and roll each out as thin as paper.

  4. Let the rolled dough dry for 2 hours.

  5. Roll the dried dough tightly and cut into fine rings, about the width of a fine broom straw.

  6. Shake out the cut noodles to separate them.

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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 flour into a stiff dough and give the noodles structure when cooked.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Milk
Adds moisture to the egg mixture so the dough is easier to roll thin.
Beef bouillon
Forms the savoury liquid base of the soup.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough as thin as paper. Thin dough cooks through quickly and stays tender. Dough rolled thick stays dense and chewy, and the drying step helps it hold its shape when cut.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, milk, flour):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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