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Tomato Soup

A hearty tomato soup made with stock, tomatoes, vegetables, herbs, and a roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the carrot, onion, and celery; cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the thyme, bay leaf, cloves, and peppercorns, then add the flour.

  4. Cook for another 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the tomatoes and cover the pot; cook slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture, then add the heated stock.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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

Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries aroma from the herbs and spices.
Flour
Thickens the soup by starch, giving it a smoother, heavier body.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the soup as they cook down.
Carrot, onion, and celery
Build sweetness and savory depth as they cook slowly in butter.
Soup stock
Supplies the liquid base that turns the cooked mixture into soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour roux. Cooking the flour with the butter and vegetables for a few minutes cooks off its raw taste and helps it thicken evenly when liquid is added. Stirring frequently prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, thyme, clove, butter, flour, carrot, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, thyme, clove, butter, flour, carrot, celery. 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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