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Vermicelli Soup

A veal broth with turnip, onion, carrot, and vermicelli, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, and bay leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Vermicelli Soup

Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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. Boil the shank of veal in 3 quarts of water for 3 hours with the turnip, onion, and carrot.

  2. Strain the broth.

Finish the soup

  1. Add ½ cup of vermicelli to the broth and boil for 45 minutes.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and bay leaves.

  3. If the water boils away, add more.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal shank
Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth during long simmering, giving body to the soup.
Vermicelli
Thin pasta that softens in the broth and thickens the soup slightly as its starch releases.
Turnip
Adds mild, slightly sweet earthy flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Builds savory aromatic depth in the broth as it cooks down.
Carrot
Contributes gentle sweetness and color to the broth during simmering.

The step that matters

Adding the vermicelli and boiling 45 minutes. Vermicelli is thin and cooks quickly, so boiling it too long turns it soft and mushy and can thicken the broth excessively. Watching the time keeps the noodles tender but intact.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

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

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