Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, onion, parsley, milk, water, corn flour, pepper, and salt, simmered and blended.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Tomato Soup

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine the tomatoes, sliced onion, parsley, water, pepper, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer for 45 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Blend the corn flour with the milk and add to the strained mixture.

  2. Boil for 7 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

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 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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 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 flavour, acidity and the liquid base of the soup.
Onion
Adds aroma and gentle sweetness as it cooks into the soup.
Corn flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated in liquid.
Milk
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Boil for 7 minutes, stirring to prevent burning. Corn flour only thickens fully once the liquid reaches a boil, so the mixture must be brought up to heat. Stirring keeps the milk and starch from settling and scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, milk, corn, flour, 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.

More tomato soup recipes

Cream 27Clear 14Creamed 10Creamy 8French 8with Rice 8 See all 632 →

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipes