Name: Vermicelli Soup
Ingredients: 1 shin of veal; 2 onions; 2 carrots; 2 turnips; ¼ teaspoon salt; 4 quarts water; 2 cups vermicelli

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

Boil the shin of veal, onions, carrots, turnips, and salt in 4 quarts of water for 3 hours.
Strain the broth.
Add the vermicelli to the broth and boil for 30 minutes.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together3,015 recipes

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

Shin of veal: Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as it simmers for hours.
Vermicelli: Thin pasta that cooks in the broth, adding starch and a soft, tender bite.
Onions: Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the long-simmered broth.
Carrots: Contribute natural sweetness and body to the broth.
Turnips: Add a mild, slightly peppery sweetness to the broth.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

Parsnipbetter flavor fit
Leekbetter flavor fit
Beetrootbetter flavor fit
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.