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Noodle Soup

A creamy milk-based noodle soup flavored with onion, mace, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Noodle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a double boiler, heat 2½ pints of milk with the onion and mace.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with ½ cup of cold milk until smooth.

Cook

  1. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk.

  2. Add salt and pepper, and cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the noodles and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 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

Milk
Forms the main liquid base and adds richness and body to the soup.
Flour
Starch thickens the hot milk into a smooth, lightly thickened broth.
Noodles
Absorb liquid and soften in the hot broth, adding substance and texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the boiling milk. Flour starch swells and thickens as it heats, so if the slurry is not already smooth and is poured in unevenly, it clumps into lumps that are hard to remove.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, onion, pepper. 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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