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Tomato Soup with Rice

A tomato soup flavored with butter, flour, and rice, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. In a sauté pan, fry the sliced onion in butter until soft.

  2. Add the chopped tomatoes and parsley.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt butter the size of a pigeon's egg until bubbling.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Stir in the tomato mixture.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

  5. If using, add the stock.

  6. Return the soup to the heat until hot.

  7. Stir in the fresh-boiled rice.

  8. Add the baking soda.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when frying the onion and enriching the roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when cooked in melted butter before the tomatoes are added.
Fresh-boiled rice
Adds body and bulk, softening the soup and giving it a heartier texture.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the sharp taste.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts with acid and releases gas quickly, so adding too much can give the soup a soapy taste and an unpleasant flavour. Add only the small amount called for and stir it in fully.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, tomato, parsley, flour, rice, pepper):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, parsley, flour, rice, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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