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Semolina Soup a LA Palermo

A soup made with semolina noodles and game consommé, served with grated Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Semolina Soup a LA Palermo

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pasta

  1. Mix wheat flour and Turkish wheat flour on a clean surface.

  2. Make a hollow in the center and add egg yolks, cream, black pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Knead into a firm paste and roll it out thinly with a rolling pin.

  4. Cut into 1‑inch bands and shred to resemble vermicelli.

  5. Spread shreds on a baking sheet lined with paper and let dry for 4 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the dried shreds to boiling game consommé and skim the surface.

  2. Let simmer gently until ready to serve, then add a pinch of ground black pepper.

  3. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese on the side.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together359 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and bind the dough into a firm, pliable paste.
Wheaten flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the shreds together.
Turkish wheat flour
Adds further wheat structure so the dough can be rolled thin and shredded.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the dough a softer, richer texture.

The step that matters

Drying the shreds. The shreds must dry fully before simmering. Damp pasta would absorb liquid and turn soft and sticky in the consommé, so it needs enough time to dry.

“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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