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Noodle Soup

A broth of brisket, onion, and tomatoes served with egg‑flour noodles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Noodle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the brisket in water for 2 hours.

  2. Add salt, pepper, onion, and tomatoes to the broth.

  3. Boil until the meat is tender.

  4. Strain the broth.

Make and cook the noodles

  1. In a bowl, mix eggs, flour, and salt to make a stiff dough.

  2. Roll the dough very thin, then dry it, fold, and cut into thin noodles.

  3. Use 1 gallon of boiling broth and gradually drop in the noodles.

  4. Boil for 20 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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 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

Brisket
Slow boiling in water turns tough connective tissue tender, flavouring the broth as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the flour into a stiff dough and add richness and structure to the noodles.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the noodle dough its structure and chew.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it simmers.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough cooks through quickly and stays tender. Thick dough stays doughy in the centre and can turn gummy in the hot broth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, egg, flour. 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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