Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni or Vermicelli Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 macaroni

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

  2. Drain the macaroni or vermicelli and pour cold water over it.

  3. Lay the sticks close together and cut them into 1-inch pieces.

Make the bouillon

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

  2. Boil the bouillon down to 2 quarts.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the pieces to a plain soup stock.

  2. Remove the fat from the bouillon.

  3. Clarify the broth.

  4. 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

Beef
Provides the main meaty flavour and savoury depth of the broth.
Bones
Release gelatin during simmering, giving the broth body and a fuller mouthfeel.
Macaroni or vermicelli
Adds starch and bulk, turning the broth into a more substantial soup.
Celery root
Contributes a earthy, aromatic flavour to the bouillon.

The step that matters

Clarify the broth. Fat and fine particles make broth cloudy and greasy. Removing the fat first and keeping the liquid gently simmering rather than vigorously boiling helps it stay 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.

More macaroni soup recipes

Tomato 8Veal 5 See all 191 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes