Why it works: Tomato and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,469 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Vermicelli Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the stock
Remove the fat from the top of the soup stock, leaving a little behind.
Add seasoning to the remaining stock.
Return it to the ice.
Heat all the stock together.
Divide and return the smaller portion to the ice.
Make the soup
Warm the stock with the leftover tomato sauce until it begins to boil.
Strain the mixture through a thin, coarse muslin.
Put the strained stock back over the fire.
Remove any scum that rises, for 10 minutes.
Finish and serve
Add the broken-up vermicelli, which has been boiled for 5 minutes in hot water and drained.
Simmer for 5 minutes.
Pour out the soup.
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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Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,469 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Soup stock
- Forms the liquid base and carries most of the soup's flavour.
- Vermicelli
- Thin pasta that softens in the hot stock and gives the soup body.
- Yesterday's tomato sauce
- Adds acidity, savoury depth and colour to the stock.
The step that matters
Removing the scum. As the stock heats, proteins and impurities rise to the surface as scum. Removing them while it forms keeps the soup clear and stops off flavours from mixing back in.
“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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