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
In a bowl, mix the eggs and a little salt with enough flour to form a stiff dough.
Roll the dough thin, as thin as a knife blade, and divide it into three parts.
Flour the dough well, roll it up tightly, and cut it crosswise into very thin strips.
Shake the noodles out into rings.
Cook the soup
Season the boiling stock with salt and pepper, then drop in the noodles.
Cook for half an hour or until the noodles are tender.
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).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Bind the flour and add richness and structure to the dough.
- Flour
- Forms the dough's structure so the noodles hold their shape while cooking.
- Stock
- Provides the liquid and savory flavor the noodles cook in.
The step that matters
Roll the dough thin. Thin dough cooks through evenly in the hot stock and stays tender. Thick dough stays chewy in the center, while overworked dough can turn tough.
“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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