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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with stock, tomatoes, onion, herbs, pepper, salt, butter, and served over fried bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the strong stock and tomatoes.

  2. Add the minced onion and fine herbs, then boil slowly.

  3. Strain the mixture through a coarse sieve, then through a fine strainer, and boil again.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, and stir in the drawn butter.

  2. Thicken slightly and add sugar if necessary.

  3. Serve the soup over fried bread crumbs.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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 + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + peppertop 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, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Strong stock
Supplies the savoury backbone and liquid that the tomatoes simmer in.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Fried bread crumbs
Add crisp texture contrast against the smooth soup.

The step that matters

Straining through a coarse sieve, then a fine strainer. Passing the cooked tomatoes and herbs through two sieves removes skins, seeds and fibres, which gives the soup a smooth texture rather than a grainy or pulpy one.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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