Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 12,257 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Clear Vermicelli Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the veal meat from the bones into thin shreds and crack the bones into splinters.
Mince the ham and sweet herbs.
In a soup kettle, combine the shredded veal, minced ham, herbs, and water.
Make the broth
Cover tightly with a weight on the lid and let it slowly boil for 5 hours.
Transfer the broth to a jar, season with salt and pepper, and seal while hot.
Leave the jar on the side of the range to keep warm overnight.
Before breakfast, pour the broth into a bowl and let it cool.
Remove the fat layer two hours before dinner.
Turn the soup jelly, bones included, into a soup pot and melt it.
Strain the soup through a wire sieve, add ground mace, and boil for 1.5 hours, skimming as needed.
Serve
Break the vermicelli into short bits, boil until tender, and place in a tureen, discarding the boiling water.
Strain the broth over the vermicelli through double tarlatan and let it stand for 10 minutes before serving.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pepper + macetop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
-
Veal + hamtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together3,264 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Veal + macetop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together3,761 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
-
Veal + peppertop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Ham + peppertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together6,058 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal
- Breaks down into gelatin during long simmering, giving the broth body and a jelly-like richness.
- Lean ham
- Adds savoury, meaty flavour to the broth without much added fat.
- Vermicelli
- Provides the starchy noodles that soak up the clear broth and give the soup its substance.
- Sweet herbs
- Add aromatic, herbal flavour that scents the broth during simmering.
The step that matters
Slow boil under a weighted lid. A gentle, long simmer extracts gelatin and flavour from the veal and bones while keeping the broth clear. A hard rolling boil would emulsify fat and cloud the liquid.
Flavor stand-ins for the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper):
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Celerybetter flavor fit
- Marjorambetter flavor fit
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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