Why it works: Beef and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,847 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Vermicelli Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the vermicelli in warm water for a few minutes.
Make the soup
Add the soaked vermicelli to the broth.
Stir in the sweet butter.
Boil the soup for 15 minutes after adding the vermicelli.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Vermicelli
- Forms the body of the soup and softens into a tender, slightly starchy bite.
- Broth
- Provides the liquid base and most of the savory flavor of the soup.
- Sweet butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, round mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Boiling the soup after adding the vermicelli. Vermicelli is thin and cooks quickly. Boiling it for the full 15 minutes can make it soft and mushy, and extra starch released into the broth makes the soup cloudy and thick. Watch the texture as it cooks.
“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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