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 ↓
German Noodles
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Beat the eggs well.
Work in flour to make a firm paste and knead well.
Divide the dough into two parts.
Shape the noodles
Roll each part out thin and let it dry slightly without hardening.
Roll it up and cut into small pieces the size of a large pea.
Cook and serve
Scatter the pieces in boiling salted water.
When cooked through, drain and add to your boiling soup.
Simmer for 15 minutes.
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
- Eggs
- Add moisture, richness and binding that hold the dough together.
- Flour
- Forms gluten when kneaded, giving the dough structure and chew.
The step that matters
Roll thin and dry slightly without hardening. If the dough is too wet it sticks and tears, and if it dries too much it turns brittle and cracks when cut. Letting it dry just enough makes it easy to roll and cut cleanly.
“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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