Name: Egg Balls for Soup
Ingredients: 3 or 4 hard boiled eggs, yolks only; 2 raw eggs; 2 tablespoons melted butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); flour, as needed

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Egg Balls for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

Rub the yolks of the hard boiled eggs into a smooth paste with melted butter, pepper, and salt.
Add the raw eggs and beat until light.
Mix in enough flour to hold the paste together.

Shape and cook

Form the mixture into balls using floured hands.
Set the balls in a cool place until ready to cook.
Just before serving the soup, carefully add the balls and boil for one minute.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Hard boiled egg yolks: Form the rich, smooth base of the paste that holds the balls together.
Raw eggs: Bind the mixture and set when boiled, giving the balls structure and a light texture.
Melted butter: Adds fat and moisture, making the paste smooth and tender.
Flour: Absorbs moisture and gives the paste enough body to hold its shape.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Too little flour leaves the paste too soft to hold its shape in the soup, while too much makes the balls dense and tough. Add it gradually until the paste just holds together.

“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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Egg Balls for Soup