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Tomato Soup

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

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

Why it works: Tomato and pepper 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

Prepare

  1. Skim and strain the beef stock.

  2. Remove the skin and hard center from the tomatoes, then pass them through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Add the tomato puree to the stock.

  2. Make a paste with the butter and flour.

  3. When the stock begins to boil, stir in the paste, ensuring there are no lumps.

  4. Boil for twenty minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour 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

Beef stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savoury flavour.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour, colour and body of the soup once pureed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that combines with flour to make a thickening paste.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smoother, heavier body.

The step that matters

Stir in the paste when the stock begins to boil, without lumps. Flour thickens liquid only when it is well dispersed. Stirring the butter-flour paste into hot stock keeps the starch from clumping, which would leave lumps that do not smooth out during the boil.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, 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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