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Dutch Dumplings for Soup

A thick batter dumpling made from sweet milk, butter, salt, flour, and eggs, dropped into soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Dutch Dumplings for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Heat the sweet milk, butter, and salt in a small stew pan until boiling.

  2. Mix flour with water first.

  3. Stir in enough flour to create a very thick batter.

  4. Remove from heat and add the beaten eggs.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the batter into small balls.

  2. Drop the balls into the soup.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Starch and gluten build the thick batter's body, so the dumplings hold together.
Eggs
Eggs bind the batter and set as they cook, helping dumplings keep their shape.
Butter
Fat adds richness and a tender texture to the dumplings.
Sweet milk
Milk adds moisture and softness, and its sugars add a mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Add the eggs off the heat and let the mixture cool. Beaten eggs added to a boiling mixture can scramble and curdle. Cooling lets the batter thicken slightly so the balls keep their shape when dropped into the soup.

“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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