Name: Vermicelli Soup
Ingredients: 2 lbs lamb, all fat removed; 3 quarts water; Coarse sea salt, to taste; Sweet herbs, to taste; 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce; ½ lb vermicelli

Why it works: Lamb and sauce work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and 925 recipes mention both. Both carry decanoic acid, which smells soapy, waxy. The science ↓

Vermicelli Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

Cut the lamb into pieces and cover with water in a pot.
Boil until the meat is in shreds.
Season the soup with salt, sweet herbs, and Worcestershire sauce.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Strain the soup.
Return the strained soup to the pot.

Finish and serve

Boil the vermicelli in clear water until tender.
Add the vermicelli to the soup.
Bring the soup to a boil once more.
Serve.

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.

Lamb + saucetop 21% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together925 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lamb: Provides the meat and flavor base that gives the soup its body and richness.
Vermicelli: Thin pasta that softens in the hot broth and adds starchy body and bite.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds savory, tangy depth that rounds out the seasoning of the broth.

“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.