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Tomato Bouillon

A clear tomato-based bouillon made with tomatoes, herbs, and spices, thickened with arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a saucepan, combine the tomatoes, bay leaf, salt, cayenne, parsley, onion, cloves, and water.

  2. Heat slowly and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary, then strain through two layers of wet cheesecloth.

Thicken and serve

  1. Return the strained liquid to the heat and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the arrowroot dissolved in cold water and stir until thickened.

  3. Simmer for an additional 6 minutes and serve in cups.

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.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + arrowroottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 broth.
Arrowroot
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth, lightly clear consistency when heated.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the simmered liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the arrowroot. Arrowroot must be fully dissolved in cold water before it goes into the hot liquid. Added dry or as lumps, it clumps and thickens unevenly. Stirring while it heats lets the starch swell evenly into a smooth thickened broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, parsley, clove, arrowroot):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, parsley, clove, arrowroot. 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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