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Tomato Soup

A simple soup made with tomatoes, beef broth, pepper, sugar, and thickened with flour or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook and mash the tomatoes, then strain them finely.

  2. Add the strained tomatoes to the beef broth.

  3. Season with pepper and sugar to taste.

  4. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour or pulverized crackers.

  5. Boil for 10 minutes and serve.

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

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 acidity of the soup once cooked and strained.
Beef broth
Supplies the liquid base and savory depth of the soup.
Flour or pulverized crackers
Thickens the soup as it simmers, giving it a smoother body.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour or crackers before boiling. Flour and crackers thicken liquids through starch that swells when heated. Stirring them in evenly before boiling prevents lumps and gives the soup a smooth, consistent texture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, sugar, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, sugar, flour. 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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