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Noodles for Soup
Mrs. F. D. J.
Rub into two eggs as much sifted flour as they will absorb; then roll out until thin as a wafer; dust over a little flour, and then roll over and over into a roll; cut off thin slices from the edge of the roll and shake out into long strips; put them into the soup lightly and boil for ten minutes; salt should be added while mixing with the flour-about a saltspoonful.
A two-ingredient egg noodle, given by weight of nothing at all — the eggs set the scale. It works, but a few numbers help.
- How much flourTwo large eggs will take somewhere in the region of 1 to 1 1/2 cups of flour (roughly 4 1/2 to 6 1/2 oz) before the dough stops accepting more. Stop while it is stiff but still cohesive; a dough that has absorbed every last spoonful will crack rather than roll.
- A saltspoonfulA saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon. Mixed into the flour it seasons the noodle itself, which matters because the broth will not penetrate in ten minutes.
- Rest before rollingThe original goes straight from mixing to rolling. Twenty to thirty minutes covered on the counter relaxes the gluten and is the difference between "thin as a wafer" and a dough that fights back.
- Thin as a waferAim for a very thin sheet, on the order of 1/16 inch or less. Flour the surface generously before rolling it up, or the coils will weld and you will cut a solid spiral instead of strips.
- Boiling timeTen minutes suits noodles that have been left to dry firm. Fresh-cut and still soft, they are done in 3 to 4 minutes — longer and they slump and cloud the soup with starch.
- Cook them in the soup or notDropping them straight into the broth, as written, thickens it noticeably. For a clear soup, boil the noodles in salted water and add them to the bowls.
- YieldTwo eggs' worth makes enough noodles for four to six bowls of soup. The strips keep a week dried on a rack, or freeze loose on a tray.
Egg noodles like these came into American home cooking largely through German and Central European kitchens, where the same dough — flour worked into egg with no water at all — is cut fine for soup or broad for buttering. The Home Cook Book was compiled in the 1870s from contributions by named housewives, and the initials attached here, Mrs. F. D. J., are the whole of the attribution: such community cookbooks are generally thought to have traded in recipes that were already familiar in a neighbor's kitchen, which would explain why the method is described so briskly and the quantities left to the eggs. The rolled-and-sliced technique is worth noting as pure economy of equipment: no noodle cutter, nothing but a rolling pin and a knife.