Name: Rice or Vermicelli, or Macaroni Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart beef tea; 1 ounce macaroni; 1 ounce vermicelli; Salt to taste; 5 grains cayenne pepper (optional); Rice (optional)

Why it works: Tea and rice work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 197 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice or Vermicelli, or Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

Prepare 1 quart of beef tea as previously described.
Boil it down to 1 pint.

Add the starch

If using macaroni or vermicelli, add 1 ounce of either to the soup.
If using rice, boil it separately in water until cooked, then drain and dry slightly.
Add the rice to the concentrated soup after cooking.

Season

Season with salt and cayenne pepper if desired, depending on the patient's condition.

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.

Tea + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together197 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,265 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beef + teatop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tea: Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its meaty flavour.
Macaroni: Adds body and a starchy bite as it softens in the broth.
Vermicelli: Adds body and a starchy bite as it softens in the broth.
Rice: Adds body and a starchy bite; cooked separately so it does not overthicken 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.