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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, celery, stock, onion, tapioca, cloves, and spices, thickened with a flour paste.

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

Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped tomatoes, celery, soup stock, minced onion, soaked tapioca, cloves, and red pepper or paprika.

  2. Cook slowly for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Mix the flour with cold water to form a paste, then add the flour mixture to the soup and cook briskly for 10 minutes, stirring while serving.

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

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Tapioca
Soaked tapioca adds body and thickens the soup as it cooks.
Flour
Mixed with cold water into a paste, it thickens the soup as it simmers.
Celery
Adds savory aroma and background flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water first; added directly to hot liquid it clumps into lumps that do not dissolve, and it needs brisk cooking so the starch fully thickens and loses its raw taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, clove, pepper, 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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