Name: Veal Soup with Macaroni
Ingredients: 3 pounds veal (knuckle or scrag), bones broken and meat cut off; 3 quarts water; ¼ pound macaroni; Butter, to taste

Why it works: Veal and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,381 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Veal Soup with Macaroni

Ingredients

3 pounds veal (knuckle or scrag), bones broken and meat cut off
3 quarts water
¼ pound macaroni
Butter, to taste

Directions

Cook the veal and macaroni

Boil the veal in the water for at least 3 hours until reduced to shreds.
Cook the macaroni, broken into 1-inch pieces, in a separate pot of water until tender.
Add a little butter to the cooked macaroni.

Finish the soup

Strain the meat from the soup.
Season the soup to taste.
Add the macaroni and the water it was cooked in to the soup.
Let it boil once and 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.

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.

Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal: Connective tissue breaks down into gelatin during long cooking, giving the broth body and richness.
Macaroni: Releases starch into the soup, adding bulk and a slightly thicker texture.
Butter: Adds fat, which gives the macaroni richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil the veal for at least 3 hours. Veal knuckle and scrag contain collagen that only converts to gelatin after prolonged cooking. Stopping early leaves the meat tough and the broth thin.

“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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Veal Soup with Macaroni