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Tomato Soup

A simple tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, onion, stock, spices, and a butter‑flour roux.

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

Simmer the tomatoes

  1. Combine tomatoes, onion, stock or water, sugar, peppercorns, salt, bay leaf, and cloves in a pot.

  2. Cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture to remove solids and return the liquid to the pot.

  4. Add baking soda.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add one-third of the hot soup to the butter‑flour mixture, stirring until thickened and smooth.

  4. Combine the thickened mixture with the remaining soup and heat through.

  5. 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. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour in the roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup by forming a roux with the butter.
Baking soda
Neutralises some acidity from the tomatoes, mellowing the flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the roux to the soup. Whisk the butter-flour mixture into the hot soup gradually, adding only a portion at first. Starch granules swell and thicken as they heat, so adding the hot soup slowly keeps the mixture smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sugar, clove, 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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