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Soup

Spanish Soup

A pepper and tomato soup with macaroni, made with stock, butter, flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the chopped green and red peppers and onion in the butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the flour, heated stock, and strained tomatoes; strain the mixture.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add the cooked macaroni.

Finish

  1. Just before serving, stir in the vinegar.

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.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the stock into a lightly body-rich soup as it cooks.
Butter
Fat that softens the peppers and onion and carries their flavor into the soup.
Macaroni
Adds starch and bulk, becoming the body of the soup.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity, color, and savory depth to the base.
Vinegar
Adds a bright acidity that lifts the flavor of the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar just before serving. Acid added at the end brightens flavor, while long cooking can dull its sharpness and aroma. Adding it last keeps the tang fresh.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, pepper, onion, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, onion, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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