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Filling for Noodles

A savory filling made from stale bread, butter, onion, eggs, and seasonings, used in noodle soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Filling for Noodles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Moisten stale bread with water, then press out excess water.

  2. Melt butter in a pan and brown the chopped onion.

  3. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and browned onion to the bread.

  4. Combine all ingredients in a dish and beat in the eggs until light.

Fill and cook

  1. Roll out one noodle into a five-inch square.

  2. Place 1 tablespoon of filling in the center and press the sides together.

  3. Drop filled noodles into soup and boil for about 5 minutes.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the body of the filling and soaks up moisture, giving it bulk.
Eggs
Bind the filling together and set when cooked, holding its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns the onion for deeper flavor.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma when browned in butter.

The step that matters

Pressing out excess water from the bread. Bread that stays wet makes the filling soggy and loose, so it may not hold together inside the noodle or set properly when cooked. Pressing out the water keeps the texture firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, butter, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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