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Vermicelli Soup

A hearty soup made with meat, ham, onions, celery, herbs, and vermicelli, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Vermicelli Soup

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 16,001 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vermicelli Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a rich soup by boiling the meat with ham, onions, celery, pepper, salt, and sweet herbs until the meat falls from the bones.

  2. Strain the soup and add the scalded vermicelli.

  3. Stir in Cayenne pepper and let it boil for five minutes.

  4. Serve the soup over toasted bread.

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

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Meat + hamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Vermicelli
Thin pasta that softens in the broth and thickens it slightly while adding body.
Meat
Releases gelatin and flavor into the broth as it simmers, giving the soup richness.
Onions
Build savory sweetness and depth as they cook down into the broth.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, celery, pepper, bread):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, celery, 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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