Skip to main content
Main

Clear Tomato Soup

A clear soup made from tomatoes, water, onion, bay leaf, cloves, sugar, cornstarch, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Clear Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine tomatoes, water, onion, bay leaf, and cloves in a pot.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Return the liquid to the pot.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix cornstarch with a little water.

  2. Add the mixture to the pot.

  3. Stir in butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  4. Heat until thickened.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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 and flavor of the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth, clear-bodied soup when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and richer finish.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Heat until thickened. Cornstarch must be heated to thicken, since its starch granules swell and gelatinize only at a simmer. Stop too early and the soup stays thin; the mixture should be stirred while heating to prevent lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, sugar, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes