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Tomato Soup

A vegetable soup made with beef stock, carrots, turnips, beet, onions, tomatoes, butter, flour, sugar, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine beef stock, carrot, turnip, beet, and onions in a large pot.

  2. Boil for 45 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Add the can of tomatoes to the strained stock.

  5. Boil for 15 minutes.

  6. Strain again.

  7. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the roux and finish

  1. Melt the butter until light brown in a separate saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour while the butter is hot.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add the sugar and mix thoroughly.

  5. Return to heat and boil for 15 minutes.

  6. Strain the mixture before 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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter into a roux.
Butter
Carries flavor and, browned slightly, adds a nutty aroma and fat for the roux.
Tomatoes
Provide the main tomato flavor and acidity of the soup.
Onions
Build savory sweetness and aroma in the base stock.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that the vegetables cook into.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the hot butter. Flour must be stirred into the butter while it is hot and cooked briefly so it forms a smooth roux. Adding it to cold butter or cooling the mixture too early can leave lumps that do not dissolve well when the soup is returned to heat.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, onion, butter, flour, sugar. 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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