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Vermicelli Soup

A broth of veal, onion, carrots, turnips, and vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Vermicelli Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,002 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vermicelli Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the shin of veal, onion, carrots, turnips, and salt with 4 quarts of water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 hours.

Add the vermicelli and serve

  1. Add the vermicelli and continue to boil for an additional 1.5 hours.

  2. Before serving, remove the bone and vegetables.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together3,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together6,841 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 shin
Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth during the long simmer.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the broth as it cooks.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the broth.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth.
Vermicelli
Thin pasta that softens in the broth and adds starch and body.

The step that matters

Adding the vermicelli and boiling for 1.5 hours. Thin pasta cooks quickly and keeps boiling in hot liquid. Left too long, it softens past al dente and turns mushy, clouding the broth and losing bite.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, turnip):

  1. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  2. Leekbetter flavor fit
  3. Beetrootbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, turnip. 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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