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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with beef stock, vegetables, butter, flour, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Make 1 gallon of beef stock.

  2. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, carrots, onions, and turnip.

  3. Boil the mixture for 1.5 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat until light brown, then add the flour and mix well.

  2. Stir in the strained vegetable mixture, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim the surface for 5 minutes.

  4. Serve very hot.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and fresh tomato flavor of the soup.
Butter
Browned with the flour, adds nutty aroma and richness to the soup.
Flour
Cooked into the browned butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries and savory flavor for the soup.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body as they simmer and break down.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and flour. Butter left over medium heat can burn quickly, and flour cooked too briefly tastes raw. Stirring constantly until the roux is light brown gives nutty flavor and proper thickening before the vegetable mixture is added.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion, turnip, butter, flour, sugar):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, turnip, butter, flour, sugar. 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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