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 for Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, beat the egg.
Gradually add sifted flour until the mixture is thick and absorbs the egg.
Add a little salt.
Shape the noodles
Roll the dough out as thin as a wafer.
Lightly dredge with flour.
Roll the dough into a large roll.
Slice the roll from the ends to create strips.
Finish
Shake out the strips loosely and drop them into the 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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Egg
- Binds the flour into a cohesive dough and adds richness and firmness.
- Sifted flour
- Its starch and gluten form the dough's structure and give the noodles their chew.
The step that matters
Gradually add sifted flour. Adding flour a little at a time lets it hydrate evenly with the egg. Too much flour at once leaves dry patches and a tough, crumbly dough that is hard to roll thin.
“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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