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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, broth, herbs, rice, butter, sugar, and bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for a few seconds, then transfer them to cold water and skin them.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the skinned tomatoes, broth, parsley, salt, pepper, and spices tied in a linen bag (thyme, peppercorns, bay leaf, onions, and cloves).

  3. Cook the mixture over moderate heat until done.

Strain and finish the soup

  1. Strain the mixture through a colander, using a potato masher to extract juice and pulp while discarding the seeds.

  2. Mix the strained juice and pulp with the boiled rice, then add the butter and sugar.

  3. Simmer the mixture for about 30 minutes, then transfer it to a soup dish.

Serve

  1. Cut the bread into dice, fry in a little butter, and place in the soup tureen before pouring the soup over it.

  2. Cover for 2 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

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, juice and pulp that form the soup.
Rice
Thickens the soup and gives it a fuller, smoother body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and softens the finish.
Bread
Fried dice add crisp texture against the smooth soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, thyme, pepper, clove, rice, 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.

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