Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
In a pot, combine the soup stock, tomatoes, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and bring to a simmer.
In a separate bowl, mix the butter and flour until smooth, then stir into the soup to thicken.
Strain and serve
Strain the soup over cubes of fried or browned bread.
Season with pepper before serving.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,013 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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, flavor, and color of the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and stirred in.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to form the thickener.
- Sugar
- Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with sweetness.
- Soup stock
- Forms the liquid base that carries the other flavors.
The step that matters
Mixing the butter and flour into the soup. Stirring a flour and butter paste into hot liquid can form lumps if it is not blended smooth first. Mixing until smooth before adding it helps the starch disperse evenly and thicken the soup without clumps.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, nutmeg, flour, butter, bread, pepper):
- Shallotfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, flour, butter, bread, 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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