Why it works: Flour and egg 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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Place flour on a large plate.
Add salt and beaten egg, then mix with your fingers to form a stiff dough.
Knead the dough on a floured surface until it is not sticky.
Shape the noodles
Roll out the dough into a sheet almost as thin as paper.
Let the sheet dry on a towel for a few moments.
Roll the sheet tightly and cut into very narrow noodles.
Shake out the noodles and let them dry on the towel.
Cook
Cook in boiling salted water for about 15 minutes, then drain.
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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and egg 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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the dough once it is mixed and kneaded.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds richness and structure to the noodles.
The step that matters
Kneading the dough until it is not sticky. Kneading develops gluten, giving the dough elasticity so it can be rolled thin without tearing. Dough that is still sticky has too much surface moisture and will cling to the board and tear or clump when rolled.
“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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