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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, water, butter, and flour, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the can of tomatoes and reserve 1 cup.

  2. Place the remaining tomatoes in a porcelain-lined saucepan.

  3. Rinse the can with 1 pint of boiling water and add it to the saucepan.

  4. Cook the mixture over heat.

  5. In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour.

Make the soup

  1. Gradually stir in the reserved cup of cold tomatoes once the mixture boils.

  2. Cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Pass the soup through a sieve and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Tomato + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 body, flavour and acidity of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Rubbed with butter to thicken the soup and give it body.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the reserved tomatoes once the mixture boils. Adding the flour and butter mixture gradually, while stirring, prevents lumps forming, because flour clumps when it meets hot liquid without being evenly dispersed first. Stirring keeps starch granules separated so they thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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