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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, onion, stock, sugar, peppercorns, and salt, thickened with a butter‑flour roux.

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

Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 20,633 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the first six ingredients for fifteen minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a strainer and add sugar, salt, and baking soda.

Thicken and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add flour, and cook for one minute.

  2. Add one-third of the hot soup to the butter mixture and stir until thickened and smooth.

  3. Combine with the remaining soup and serve.

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

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

  2. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and acidic flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base of the flour roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, creamy texture when cooked in butter first.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, softening the soup's sharp taste.

The step that matters

Adding the hot soup to the butter-flour mixture. Adding the hot liquid gradually while stirring keeps the starch from clumping. Starch thickens smoothly when it is dispersed evenly in liquid before the rest is combined.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

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

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, sugar, 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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