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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made by boiling tomatoes with water, baking soda, butter, salt, pepper, milk or cream, served over crackers or bread crumbs.

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

  1. Boil the tomatoes in 2 quarts of boiling water for half an hour.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 2 tablespoons of butter, salt, and pepper, then boil for a little longer.

  3. Before serving, add 1 pint of milk or cream and boil for 1 minute.

  4. Pour the soup over rolled crackers or 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. Butter + milktop 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 + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 acidity of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, which can make the soup less sharp and smoother.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a smoother mouthfeel.
Milk or cream
Adds dairy richness and a creamy texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding milk or cream after the soup has boiled. Milk and cream can curdle when boiled for long, especially in acidic tomato liquid. The recipe adds them just before serving and boils only briefly, which helps keep the soup smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, milk, 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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