Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,058 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Melt the butter in a large kettle and add the tomato pulp. Bring to a boil.
Add the chopped onions and garlic, then simmer for one hour, adding water as needed to prevent evaporation.
Halfway through cooking, add the bay leaves.
Ten minutes before finishing, stir in the salt, sugar, and pepper.
Two minutes before the end, mix the flour with water and add it along with the cinnamon. Boil for two minutes.
Turn off the heat, then strain the soup through a rotary pulper or shaker.
Can and process
Can the soup in No. 3 cans, cap, tip, and process for 45 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.
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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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together14,076 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,779 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
- Tomato pulp
- Provides the main body, acidity and tomato flavour of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds fat and rich flavour, carrying the seasonings through the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup so it has a smooth, fuller body.
- Sugar
- Balances the tomato's acidity with sweetness.
- Onions
- Add savoury depth and aroma as they soften during simmering.
- Garlic
- Adds pungent aroma that mellows during simmering.
The step that matters
Adding the flour mixture. Flour must be fully mixed with water before it goes in, or it clumps and stays lumpy. Boiling for two minutes cooks out the raw starch taste and lets the starch thicken the soup properly.
Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, sugar, flour, onion, garlic, cinnamon):
- Cuminbetter flavor fit
- Cardamombetter flavor fit
- Turmericbetter flavor fit
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, sugar, flour, onion, garlic, cinnamon. 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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