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Egg-balls for Soup

Egg balls made from hard‑boiled and raw eggs, butter, salt, and flour, boiled briefly in soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs into a smooth paste with butter and salt.

  2. Add the two raw eggs and mix until light.

  3. Incorporate enough flour to hold the mixture together.

  4. Form the mixture into balls using floured hands.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the balls in a cool place until ready to cook.

  2. Just before serving the soup, carefully add the balls and boil for one minute.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 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

Hard-boiled eggs
Their mashed yolks form the bulk and rich body of the balls.
Raw eggs
They bind the mixture and, when set, give the balls a light, cohesive texture.
Flour
It absorbs moisture and gives the paste enough structure to hold its shape.
Butter
It adds fat, softening the paste and contributing richness and flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the balls to the soup. Raw egg in the balls must be fully cooked, and the balls can break apart if handled roughly. Adding them just before serving and boiling gently for the stated minute sets the egg and keeps the balls intact.

“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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