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 ↓
Noodles for Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Beat the egg until light.
Add a pinch of salt and enough flour to form a very stiff dough.
Roll out the dough very thin and dredge with flour to prevent sticking.
Let the rolled dough rest on the board for 1 hour.
Cut and serve
Roll the dough up tightly like a sheet of music and slice into thin strips.
Keep the noodles well floured to avoid sticking.
Add the noodles to the soup shortly before serving.
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.
-
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 gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chewy bite.
The step that matters
Rolling the dough very thin. Thin dough cooks through quickly and stays tender. Dredging with flour keeps it from sticking to itself and the board, so the strips separate cleanly when sliced.
“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.
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipes