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 Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Break the egg into a bowl and beat lightly.
Add flour to make a very stiff dough.
Divide the dough in half and roll each piece as thin as possible.
Lay the rolled dough on a board to dry for at least 1 hour.
Dust with flour and cut into thin strips.
Shake the strips apart if they stick together, using a little flour.
Cook and serve
Prepare and strain 2 quarts of soup or stock.
With one hand, drop in the noodles while stirring with the other.
Let the soup come to a boil, then remove and serve.
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 dough and adds richness and structure to the noodles.
- Flour
- Forms the stiff dough that gives the noodles their body, and dusting keeps the strips from sticking.
- Soup or stock
- Provides the cooking liquid and the flavour that the noodles absorb.
The step that matters
Drying the rolled dough. Resting the thin dough for at least an hour lets its surface firm up so the cut strips hold their shape and do not turn gummy or stick together in the hot soup.
“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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