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Vermicelli Soup

A hearty broth of veal or mutton with vermicelli, onions, celery, and herbs, served over a slice of bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Vermicelli Soup

Why it works: Butter and bread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Vermicelli Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large stew-pan, combine the veal or mutton pieces and broken bones.

  2. Add the butter, sliced onions, sweet herbs, and chopped celery.

  3. Cover the pan and cook over low heat for an hour to extract the essence from the meat.

  4. Skim the mixture, then pour in the boiling water and let it boil gently until the meat is reduced to rags.

  5. Strain the soup and return it to the heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the scalded vermicelli, season with salt and cayenne pepper, and boil for five minutes.

  2. Place a large slice of bread in the bottom of a tureen and pour the soup over it.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,506 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Meat + breadtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,919 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,463 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal or mutton
Its meat and bones release flavour and body into the broth during slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour from the onions and herbs into the soup.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and depth as they cook gently in the butter.
Vermicelli
Thin pasta that softens in the broth and gives the soup its body and texture.
Bread
Soaks up the soup in the tureen, adding softness and substance.

The step that matters

Simmering the meat until it reduces to rags. Gentle simmering draws collagen and flavour from the meat and bones into the liquid. Boiling hard can cloud the broth and toughen the meat, so the heat should stay low and steady.

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, meat, butter, onion, pepper, bread):

  1. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, meat, butter, onion, pepper, bread. 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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