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Soup

Hasty Soup

A quick soup made with Bovril, tomato sauce, salt, pepper, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hasty Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the ingredients

  1. In a pot, combine Bovril, tomato sauce, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stir into 1 pint of hot water.

Heat the soup

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Let it boil for a few minutes until ready.

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

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

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Bovril
Adds concentrated savoury, beefy depth and salty umami flavour to the broth.
Tomato sauce
Adds tomato flavour, gentle acidity and a touch of sweetness, plus body to the soup.

The step that matters

Limit the boiling time. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the dissolved salt and Bovril, so the soup can turn overly salty and thick if it boils too long.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Horseradishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper. 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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