Name: Cream of Tomato Soup
Ingredients: 7 whole cloves; 1 onion; a little parsley; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 quart milk; 1 tablespoon cornstarch; salt to taste; cayenne pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon butter

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil cloves, onion, and parsley in water for 15-20 minutes.
Add baking soda and strain the mixture.
Thicken milk with cornstarch by stirring and boiling for 10 minutes.
Add salt, cayenne, butter, and the strained tomato mixture.
Heat thoroughly but do not boil.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,768 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together25,843 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

Carrotbetter flavor fit
Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Potatobetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, parsley, milk, pepper, butter. 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).