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Buttered Noodles

A dough-based noodle dish cooked in boiling water and finished with butter and toasted bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Buttered Noodles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs slightly and add the milk and salt.

  2. Stir in enough flour to make a very stiff dough.

  3. Knead the dough until as stiff as possible.

Shape and dry the noodles

  1. Roll it out into thin rectangular pieces.

  2. Lay the pieces on a napkin for about 30 minutes until dry but not brittle.

  3. Rub with a little flour to prevent sticking.

  4. Roll up tightly and slice off pieces about ¼ inch thick.

  5. Shake the noodles out until long and straight.

Cook and serve

  1. Put them into boiling salted water and stir to prevent sticking.

  2. Cook until they swell and rise to the top of the water.

  3. Skim them out into a serving dish.

  4. Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the crumbled bread.

  5. Stir until the bread is golden brown, then pour over the noodles.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Bind the dough and give the noodles structure and richness.
Flour
Forms the stiff dough that gives the noodles their structure when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that coats the noodles and carries flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture that helps bring the dough together.
Bread
Toasts to golden brown, adding a nutty, crunchy topping.

The step that matters

Knead the dough until as stiff as possible. A very stiff dough has low moisture and enough gluten development to hold its shape. A soft dough would stick, tear, or turn gummy when the noodles are cooked in boiling water.

“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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