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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, water or stock, sugar, cloves, cayenne, parsley, butter, flour, onion juice, salt, and thyme.

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

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine tomatoes, hot water or stock, sugar, cloves, cayenne pepper, parsley, butter, flour, onion juice, salt, and thyme in a pot.

  2. Cook for one hour, stirring occasionally.

  3. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly as it cooks, giving it a smoother body.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the soup.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour into the soup. Flour must be fully hydrated and heated long enough to thicken the liquid smoothly. Stirring during the hour of cooking helps prevent lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, clove, pepper, parsley, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, clove, pepper, parsley, butter, flour. 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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