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 ↓
Noodle Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Beat the eggs until very light.
Mix the eggs with flour and water to form a stiff dough.
Knead the dough well and roll it out very thin.
Cut and dry
Cut the rolled dough into fine narrow strips.
Dry the strips in the sun or oven for a short time, or use them fresh.
Cook
If dried, soak the strips briefly before adding to the soup.
Boil the strips a little longer than you would for vermicelli.
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
- Eggs
- Add richness, structure and tenderness to the dough, giving the noodles their characteristic flavour and chew.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff dough its structure and lets the noodles hold their shape.
- Water
- Hydrates the flour so it can form a cohesive dough that can be kneaded and rolled thin.
The step that matters
Rolling the dough very thin. Thin dough cooks through quickly and stays tender, while thick dough stays doughy in the centre. Kneading well first develops gluten so the sheet rolls thin without tearing.
“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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