Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,377 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Cook all ingredients except flour and butter together for 10 minutes.
Melt the butter in another saucepan, add flour, then slowly add hot soup.
Finish and serve
Boil for 5 minutes, strain, and serve.
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.
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Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together3,377 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together18,518 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned 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
- Form the soup's main body, flavor, and liquid base.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and cooks with the flour to start the thickening.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter and hot liquid.
- Onion
- Adds savory aroma and depth of flavor to the soup.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that softens the tomatoes' acidity.
The step that matters
Adding hot soup to the butter and flour. Flour cooked in melted butter forms a smooth base, and adding hot liquid slowly lets it disperse evenly. Dumping it in at once can leave lumps of flour that do not dissolve.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, flour, celery, pepper, sugar):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Carrotbetter flavor fit
- Okrabetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, flour, celery, pepper, sugar. 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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