Why it works: Tomato and wheat work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 468 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓
Concentrated Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
In a large kettle, combine the chopped tomatoes with half of the water. If using clear tomato soup stock, omit the water.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then slowly add the bicarbonate of soda to prevent overflow.
Once the foaming stops, add the remaining ingredients.
Dissolve the flour in the remaining water and thicken the soup with this mixture.
Can and process
Exhaust No. 1 cans for 3 minutes and process for 35 minutes at 240°F (115°C).
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Tomato + wheattop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together468 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
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Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together2,002 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned 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
- Form the base of the soup and supply most of its body and flavour.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
- Wheat flour
- Starch thickens the soup when dissolved and heated.
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Neutralises tomato acidity and reacts to produce gas, causing foaming.
- Granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the tomato's acidity.
The step that matters
Adding the bicarbonate of soda. Soda reacts with the tomato's acid and releases carbon dioxide, which foams up quickly. Adding it slowly to the boiling mixture keeps the foam from overflowing the kettle and also neutralises some of the acidity.
Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, wheat, flour, sugar):
- Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
- Nutmegbetter flavor fit
- Jalapenobetter flavor fit
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, wheat, flour, 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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