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Vermicelli Soup

A veal broth with vermicelli, onions, carrots, and spices.

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

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vermicelli Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

  1. Combine the veal and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the onions, carrots, celery seed, cloves, mace, and salt.

  4. Simmer for about 1 hour until the veal is tender.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the veal from the pot.

  2. Shred the veal.

  3. Return the shredded veal to the pot.

  4. Add the vermicelli and cook until tender.

  5. Season with cayenne pepper to taste before serving.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + macetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Carrot + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides meat and rich flavour as it simmers into the broth.
Vermicelli
Thin pasta that adds body and starch to the soup.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the broth as they cook.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and colour to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer the veal until tender. Veal is tender only after slow, gentle simmering. Boiling hard toughens the proteins and makes the meat stringy, so keep the liquid at a quiet simmer for the full time.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, celery, clove, mace, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, celery, clove, mace, pepper. 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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