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Condensed Tomato Soup

A thick tomato soup made by boiling tomato pulp with butter, onions, spices, and thickening with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,099 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Condensed Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the soup

  1. Combine tomato pulp and butter in a large kettle.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the chopped onions.

  4. Cook for 40 minutes.

  5. Stir in the beef extract, salt, sugar, and white pepper within 10 minutes of finishing.

  6. Add the cinnamon and mace in the last 2 minutes.

  7. Mix the cold water with corn starch and stir the mixture in.

  8. Bring to a boil.

  9. Turn off the heat.

Finish and can

  1. Run the mixture through a rotary pulper or shaker.

  2. Place the mixture in cans.

  3. Cap the cans and tip the cans.

  4. Process for 30 minutes at 240°F (115°C).

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.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,448 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Corn + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato pulp
Forms the body and base flavor of the soup.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aromatic flavor as they cook down into the soup.
Corn starch
Thickens the soup by swelling with heat to give body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes and rounds out the flavor.
Beef extract
Adds savory depth and meaty umami flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch slurry. Corn starch must be fully mixed into cold water first so it disperses without clumping, then brought to a boil so the granules swell and thicken the soup evenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

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

  1. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  3. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, onion, butter, beef, corn, 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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