Name: Vermicelli Soup
Ingredients: Vermicelli; Broiled Beef-steak (fillet of the loin); Oyster Sauce; Jerusalem Artichokes; Baked Custard; Port wine

Why it works: Beef and port wine match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 626 recipes mention both. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Vermicelli Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vermicelli according to package instructions.
Broil the beef-steak until cooked to your liking.
Serve the beef-steak with oyster sauce on the side.
Cook the Jerusalem artichokes until tender.
Bake the custard until set.
Pour a glass of port wine to serve.

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.

Beef + port winetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together626 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Sauce + jerusalem artichoketop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together97 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Oyster + saucetop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together2,233 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Beef + oystertop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together794 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + port winetop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together89 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the jerusalem artichoke

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, oyster, sauce, port wine):

Shallotbetter flavor fit
Tomatobetter flavor fit
Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Jerusalem artichokethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, oyster, sauce, port wine. 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).