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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with fresh and canned tomatoes, ham, onion, butter, flour, and stock, finished with milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Slice the tomatoes.

  2. Place them in a pan with the onion, ham, seasoning, and butter.

  3. Sauté for 20 minutes.

  4. Add stock.

  5. Simmer until tender.

  6. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Blend the flour or cornflour with a little water.

  2. Add the mixture to the soup.

  3. Boil for a few minutes.

  4. Add coloring if necessary.

  5. Stir in hot milk or cream.

  6. Serve with croutons.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness as it softens in the pan.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour while the vegetables cook.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the soup.
Flour or cornflour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when boiled.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture.

The step that matters

Blending the flour or cornflour with water. Starch clumps if added dry or unmixed. Blending it first with a little water lets it disperse evenly, and boiling then swells the starch so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, ham, sugar, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ham, sugar, onion. 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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