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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, onion, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Cook the canned tomatoes with salt, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg, sugar, and the small onion in a pot until the onion is tender.

  2. Strain the mixture.

Make the milk base and combine

  1. Bring the milk to a boil in another pot.

  2. Mix the butter with a little flour.

  3. Add the butter‑flour mixture to the boiling milk.

  4. Gradually add the milk mixture to the strained tomatoes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body and tangy flavor of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the acidity of the tomatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor across the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the soup becomes smoother and fuller.
Onion
Adds savory depth as it softens with the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk mixture to the strained tomatoes. Adding the hot, thickened milk too quickly to acidic tomatoes can cause it to curdle. Adding it slowly, while stirring, lets the temperatures blend gently and keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, milk, butter, flour. 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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