Why it works: Flour and egg 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 ↓
Noodles for Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, beat the egg with the flour and salt until smooth.
Knead the dough with your hands until it resembles putty.
Roll the dough as thin as a wafer on a well-floured surface.
Let the rolled dough rest for 5 minutes.
Cut and dry
Loosely roll up the dough and cut it into very thin slices to form little wheels or curls.
Spread the pieces on the board to dry for at least 30 minutes.
Cook and serve
Cook the noodles in boiling salted water for 25 minutes.
Drain thoroughly in a colander before adding to soup.
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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and egg 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
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds richness and firmness to the noodles.
The step that matters
Drying the cut noodles. Drying for at least 30 minutes firms the noodle surfaces so they hold their shape and do not stick together or turn gummy when cooked.
“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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