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Tomato Soup

A warm soup made with tomatoes, milk, butter, and seasonings, sometimes enriched with chicken or cold meat.

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 celery 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 ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Start the soup

  1. Bring 2 quarts of boiling water to a boil.

  2. Add 1 pint of tomatoes and ½ teaspoon of baking soda.

  3. Stir in 1 pint of sweet milk, plenty of butter, and season with pepper and salt.

  4. Add a bit of chicken or any cold meat for added flavor.

Make the tomato base

  1. Simmer 1 quart of tomatoes with 1 pint of water, 1 sprig of parsley, and 1 stalk of celery until soft.

Make the roux and finish

  1. Melt 1 teaspoon of butter in a pan.

  2. Add chopped onion and sauté until soft.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour and cook until smooth, then mix with the tomato mixture.

  4. Pass the soup through a strainer.

  5. Season with salt.

  6. Heat before serving.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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, acidity and fruity flavor of the soup.
Sweet milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the soup.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness to the soup and the base.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is cooked in butter and blended with the liquid.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the soup's sharpness.
Onion
Softened by sautéing, it adds aromatic sweetness to the base.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour until smooth. Flour must be cooked in butter before the tomato mixture is added. Cooking it first lets the starch thicken evenly and helps prevent lumps in the finished soup.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, pepper, chicken, parsley, celery, 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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