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Cream of Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, water, cream, celery, parsley, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cream of Tomato Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Cook the tomatoes with the water until done.

  2. Strain the cooked tomatoes through a sieve.

  3. Add a pinch of baking soda to the tomatoes before mixing with the cream.

Make the cream base

  1. Boil the cream (or cream and milk mixture).

  2. Add the chopped celery and parsley to the boiling cream, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Combine and serve

  1. Stir the strained tomatoes into the cream mixture, stirring constantly.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  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, flavor and acidity of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the soup.
Milk
Thins the cream and adds dairy body when used in place of part of the cream.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato acidity, reducing the risk of curdling in the cream.

The step that matters

Stirring the tomatoes into the cream. Tomato acid can curdle hot dairy. Adding the baking soda to the tomatoes first lowers their acidity, and constant stirring disperses the tomato evenly so the cream does not separate.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, celery, parsley, 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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