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Soup

Italian Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with onions, canned tomatoes, water, cornstarch, cloves, salt, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and tomato 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 ↓

Italian Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the onion in butter until soft, but do not let it brown.

  2. Add the tomatoes and water to the pot with the onion.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture through a colander and return the liquid to the stove.

  5. Dissolve the cornstarch in a little water and add it to the soup.

  6. Add the cloves, salt, and sugar to taste.

  7. Boil for an additional 5 minutes.

  8. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce before serving.

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

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

  2. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 body, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smoother, heavier soup as it heats.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in butter.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and adds richness when frying.

The step that matters

Dissolve the cornstarch in a little water before adding it. Cornstarch added as dry powder clumps and stays grainy. Dissolving it in cold water first lets the starch spread evenly, so it thickens smoothly once the soup is heated.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tomato, sugar, sauce, butter. 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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