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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, butter, onion, bay leaf, stock, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the tomatoes, butter, sliced onion, and bay leaf.

  2. Cook gently until the tomatoes are thoroughly done.

  3. Strain the mixture through a wire sieve.

  4. Add 1 pint of good stock to the strained mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in lemon juice, pepper, and salt to taste.

  2. The consistency should be similar to pea soup.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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, flavour and colour of the soup once cooked and strained.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the acidity of the tomatoes.
Spanish onion
Contributes sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens during gentle cooking.
Stock
Adds liquid and savoury depth, thinning the purée to a soup consistency.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Strain through a wire sieve. Straining removes skins and seeds left after cooking, which would otherwise leave the soup gritty. Pressing the cooked tomatoes and onion through the sieve also gives a smooth texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, pepper, lemon. 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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