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Sydney Soup

A tomato-based soup with carrots, onions, herbs, peppercorns, curry powder, sugar, tapioca, and peas, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sydney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sliced onions, carrot, herbs, peppercorns, and curry powder.

  3. Fry the mixture until softened.

  4. Mix the cornflour with a little stock and pour it into the saucepan.

  5. Slice the tomatoes.

  6. Add the sliced tomatoes along with the boiling stock.

  7. Stir until it boils.

  8. Simmer slowly for one hour.

  9. Pass the mixture through a sieve and return it to the saucepan.

Thicken and serve

  1. Add the salt, sugar, and tapioca.

  2. Stir until the tapioca becomes transparent and thickens the soup.

  3. Add the cold boiled peas.

  4. Bring the soup to a boil.

  5. 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.

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 + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  5. Tomato + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

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.
Cornflour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it body.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup and turns transparent as it cooks, adding body.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the base.
Onions
Build savory sweetness and flavour as they soften in butter.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a sieve. Pushing the cooked solids through a sieve creates a smooth texture; skipping or rushing this leaves the soup coarse and stringy from the tomato and vegetable pulp.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, carrot, onion, butter, sugar):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, carrot, onion, butter, sugar. 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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