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Noodle Soup

A soup made with egg noodles, potatoes, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Noodle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add the cold water.

  2. Mix in enough flour to form a dough you can handle.

  3. Roll the dough into sheets and let them dry enough to avoid sticking.

Cut and cook

  1. Roll the sheets up and cut into very narrow strips.

  2. Cook the noodles in boiling water for 10 minutes.

  3. Chop the potatoes and onions finely and add to the soup before serving.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Bind the flour into a dough and give the noodles structure and richness.
French's white lily flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body and chew.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the soup as they soften.
Onions
Add savory aroma and sweetness as they cook into the soup.

The step that matters

Letting the sheets dry before cutting. If the sheets are cut while still moist, the strips stick together and clump in the boiling water. Drying lets the surface firm up so each noodle stays separate.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, potato, 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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