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Tomato Bouillon with Bread Fingers

A tomato broth made from sliced tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, salt, pepper, and eggs, served with toasted bread fingers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Bouillon with Bread Fingers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the bouillon

  1. Put 12 sliced tomatoes into a saucepan, or use 1 can of tomatoes; add 1 pint water, 1 sliced onion, 1 bay leaf, 1 rounding teaspoon salt, a saltspoon of white pepper; boil rapidly for ten minutes.

  2. Press through a colander, using as much of the flesh as possible.

  3. Add 1 pint boiling water and, if you like, 1/2 teaspoon beef extract and the whites of 2 eggs, slightly beaten; stand this over the fire, and boil rapidly for five minutes.

  4. Strain through two thicknesses of cheesecloth.

  5. The tomato that remains in the cloth may be put aside for sauces or flavoring of other soups.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted bread fingers.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

152Calories
9 gProtein
6 gFat
17 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Egg + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Onion + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Tomato + white peppertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Onion + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Onion and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 recipes: they 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
Provide the main flavor and body of the bouillon.
Eggs
Egg whites bind to fine particles as they cook, helping clarify the broth.

The step that matters

Boil the egg whites with the broth. Egg whites must be stirred into the liquid and brought to a rapid boil so they coagulate and trap solids. Clear strained broth depends on this clarifying step.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, egg. 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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