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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, water, butter, pepper, salt, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the peeled tomatoes and water in a pot and cook thoroughly.

  2. Season with butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add the sweet milk, bring to a quick boil, then remove from heat immediately to prevent curdling.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Sweet milk
Makes the soup creamy and mellows the tomato acidity.

The step that matters

Removing the soup from heat after adding the milk. Milk proteins and casein can curdle when heated too long or brought to a hard boil, especially in acidic tomato liquid. Boiling briefly and then taking the pot off the heat keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, milk. 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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