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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with water, tomatoes, onion, cloves, sugar, parsley, milk, butter, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil water, tomatoes, onion, cloves, sugar, and parsley together for 15 minutes.

  2. Add baking soda and strain the mixture.

  3. Thicken the milk with cornstarch, then add butter and the strained tomato mixture without boiling.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Milk
Creates the creamy base that the tomato mixture is combined into.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk so the soup has body and does not run thin.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acidity, which helps keep the milk from curdling.

The step that matters

Adding the tomato mixture without boiling. Tomato is acidic and milk proteins can curdle when heated strongly with it. Keeping the combined soup below boiling helps it stay smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, milk, butter, parsley, clove, sugar, 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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