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Cream of Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with flour and butter, sweetened with sugar, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cream of Tomato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine tomatoes, water, salt, pepper, sugar, parsley, and onion in a pot and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the stove.

  3. When it comes to a boil, add baking soda, milk, butter, and creamed flour.

Serve

  1. Serve with toast.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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 flavour of the soup.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly so it feels fuller and less watery.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, helping prevent curdling in the milk.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda and milk. Baking soda reacts with the tomato acid and foams, and adding milk to acidic tomato can cause it to curdle. Add the milk to the hot tomato liquid only after the baking soda has been stirred in and the mixture is at a boil, and keep the heat controlled so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, milk, butter, pepper, flour, sugar, parsley. 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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