Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Soup

A thickened tomato soup made with stock, tomatoes, flour, butter, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Pepper and tomato 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. In a pot, heat the soup stock and season with salt and pepper.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the butter until smooth.

  3. Add the flour mixture to the soup stock to thicken it.

  4. Add the boiled and strained tomatoes to the pot.

  5. Boil for 5 minutes, then 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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup stock when mixed with butter and stirred in.
Butter
Blends with the flour to form a smooth paste that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture to the soup stock. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unblended. Mixing it smooth with butter first lets it disperse evenly, so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

More tomato soup recipes

Cream 27Clear 14Creamed 10Creamy 8French 8with Rice 8 See all 632 →

You might also like

Tomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesTomato FrittersTomato Fritters23 recipesTomato PureeTomato Puree23 recipesMacaroni with Tomato SauceMacaroni with Tomato Sauce16 recipes