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Vermicelli Soup

A savory soup made with mutton broth, vegetables, and vermicelli, finished with a butter‑flour roux and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Vermicelli Soup

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vermicelli Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Remove all fat from the mutton broth and reduce it to two‑thirds of its original volume.

  2. In another pot, stew the celery, onion, carrot, and sweet herbs until soft.

  3. If available, add the ham bone or slices of ham to the broth for extra flavor.

Strain and thicken

  1. Strain the soup and rub the cooked vegetables through a fine colander with their cooking water.

  2. Return the strained mixture to the heat and add the broken vermicelli.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes, then stir in the butter mixed with flour.

Serve

  1. Bring to a boil again and serve hot, with grated cheese on the side.

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.

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.

  1. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mutton broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the savory flavor of the whole soup.
Vermicelli
Adds body and soft texture as the pasta cooks in the broth.
Butter mixed with flour
Thickens the soup slightly and adds richness to the broth.
Celery, onion, and carrot
Contribute aromatic sweetness and depth once stewed and strained into the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, so it must be rubbed into the butter first and whisked in well. Boiling afterward lets the starch swell and thicken the soup evenly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, carrot, ham, butter, flour, cheese):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, carrot, ham, butter, flour, cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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