Noodle Soup
Break 2 eggs in bowl, beat, adding a pinch of salt; then work in flour with your hands until a very stiff dough; turn on board and work until smooth as glass; pinch off a piece size of a walnut, roll thin as paper, then with sharp knife cut off very narrow strips; proceed in same way until all the dough is cut. Having prepared some good veal, chicken , or any kind of broth, well seasoned, drop in the noodles, being sure soup is boiling; add a little parsley. If made according to directions, will be superior to macaroni.
A two-ingredient egg noodle with no quantities given for the flour — the dough is judged by feel, not measurement. Everything depends on getting it stiff enough.
- How much flourTwo eggs will take roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups (200-250 g) of all-purpose flour, but the original is right to leave it open: absorb flour until the dough stops taking any more and feels almost too dry to knead. A slack dough will swell and go slimy in broth.
- "Smooth as glass"This is the hinge. Expect 8-10 minutes of hard kneading. The book says nothing about resting the dough, but a modern cook will find that letting the ball sit under a bowl for 20-30 minutes relaxes the gluten so it rolls paper-thin without springing back.
- Rolling and cuttingA walnut-sized piece rolled as thin as the recipe asks gives a sheet roughly saucer- to small-plate-sized. Dust with flour, fold the sheet loosely into a flat roll, and slice narrow strips with a sharp knife, then shake them out. Modern practice is the same; a pasta machine set near its thinnest setting does the job faster.
- DryingThe book assumes you cook them fresh. Spread the cut strips on a floured cloth for 15-30 minutes if you want them to hold their shape; fully dried, they keep in a tin for weeks and take a minute or two longer to cook.
- Cooking timeFresh noodles this thin need 2-4 minutes in boiling broth, not the long simmer older soups often imply. Taste one; they are done as soon as the raw-flour edge is gone.
- BrothThe recipe lists veal first, then chicken, then "any kind of broth"; veal stock is hard to buy now and a good chicken stock is the direct substitute. Season the broth fully before the noodles go in, since the starch they shed will thicken and slightly mute it.
- YieldTwo eggs' worth of noodles serves four to six as a soup garnish, rather less if you want a bowl that is mostly noodle.
Egg noodles cut by hand from a stiff, unwatered dough were everyday food in German and Pennsylvania German households, where Nudeln were dropped into chicken or veal broth, and such recipes appear widely in American community and "reliable recipe" compilations of the later nineteenth century. The closing boast — that these will be "superior to macaroni" — points to a period when macaroni meant factory-made dried pasta bought ready-made, while noodles were something a cook made at home. The absence of a flour quantity is in keeping with the ordinary style of the period, which assumed the reader knew what a stiff dough felt like under her hands.