Why it works: Walnut and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 506 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Vermicelli Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the broth
Melt the butter in a large pan over low heat.
Add the veal, mutton, ham, mace, carrots, parsnips, onions, celery, sweet herbs, morels, and anchovy.
Cover the pan and cook without water until the meat releases its juices.
Remove the meat and let it brown in the same pan without burning.
Pour in 4 quarts of water and bring to a gentle boil until reduced to 3 pints.
Strain the broth and return it to the pot.
Finish and serve
Add the vermicelli, the best part of the celery, cayenne pepper, and salt to taste.
Boil for about 4 minutes.
If the color is not satisfactory, add a little browning.
Place a French roll in a soup dish, pour the soup over it, and top with some vermicelli.
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.
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Walnut + carrottop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together506 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,095 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,035 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together936 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Mutton + hamtop 14% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together430 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Fat that starts the cooking and helps the meat and vegetables brown in the pan.
- Veal knuckle
- Releases gelatin and savoury meat juices that give the broth body and flavour.
- Mutton
- Adds rich meat flavour to the broth as it cooks down.
- Morels
- Contribute an earthy, savoury aroma to the broth.
- Vermicelli
- Thin pasta that softens in the broth and adds starch and texture.
The step that matters
Browning the meat without burning it. Browning meat in the pan builds deeper savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. If the pan gets too hot or the meat scorches, the broth turns bitter, so keep the heat moderate and watch closely.
Flavor stand-ins for the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, veal, walnut, mutton, meat, ham, carrot):
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Celerybetter flavor fit
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, walnut, mutton, meat, ham, carrot. 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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