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Macaroni or Vermicelli Soup

A beef broth soup with macaroni or vermicelli, seasoned with cloves, bay leaf, celery root, mixed herbs, and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,668 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni or Vermicelli Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pasta

  1. Cook the macaroni or vermicelli in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Drain the cooked macaroni or vermicelli, pour cold water over it, and lay the sticks close together.

  3. Cut the macaroni or vermicelli into 1‑inch pieces and add them to a plain soup stock.

Make the bouillon

  1. For the bouillon, combine beef, bones, water, salt, cloves, bay leaf, celery root, mixed herbs, and peppercorns in a pot.

  2. Boil the bouillon down to 2 quarts, then remove the fat and strain.

  3. Add more seasoning if desired.

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.

  1. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni or vermicelli
Forms the body of the soup, adding starch and a tender, bite-sized texture.
Beef from the round
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the bouillon body and savouriness.
Bones
Add gelatin and depth of flavour to the bouillon as they simmer.
Celery root
Contributes a savoury, earthy aroma to the bouillon.

The step that matters

Boil the bouillon down to 2 quarts, then remove the fat and strain. Reducing concentrates the flavour of the meat and bones, while skimming removes fat that would make the soup greasy. Straining removes solids so the broth stays clear.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Pepperfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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