Why it works: Chicken and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Vermicelli Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the stock
Add the remains of yesterday's soup to your stock pot and dilute with a little boiling water. Heat to a boil.
Strain out the ox tails and other solids.
Place the ox tails and skeletons of yesterday's chickens in a pot and cover with the skimmed liquor from the corned beef.
Warm slowly to a boil.
Return the mixture to the stock pot for tomorrow's soup.
Finish and serve
For today's soup, add seasoning to taste.
Boil and skim.
Ten minutes before serving, drop in a handful of broken vermicelli that has been cooked in boiling water for ten minutes.
Boil once more and serve.
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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Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,148 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
- Adds body and starchy bite to the broth as it cooks through.
- Ox-tails
- Release gelatin and savory flavor into the stock as they simmer.
- Skeletons of yesterday's chickens
- Add gelatin and depth of flavor to the stock as they simmer.
The step that matters
Ten minutes before serving, drop in the vermicelli. Vermicelli is thin and starchy, so it softens quickly and can turn mushy if it boils too long. Adding it late keeps its texture firm and prevents the broth from becoming cloudy and thick.
“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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