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Andalusian Soup

A tomato and onion soup with cloves, bay leaf, pepper, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Andalusian Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the roux

  1. Fry the minced vegetables in the butter until light brown.

  2. Mix in the flour.

  3. Place the pan in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown thoroughly without burning.

Simmer the soup

  1. Scrape the contents into the soup stock.

  2. Add the cloves, half a bay leaf, and black pepper.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes and strain.

  4. Add the tomatoes rubbed through a colander.

  5. Simmer on low for another 30 minutes. Skim occasionally.

  6. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fats the vegetables as they fry, carrying flavour and helping them brown.
Flour
Thickens the soup once cooked into the butter and vegetables.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, body and savoury flavour to the soup.
Minced soup vegetables
Build the aromatic base of the soup as they fry and cook down.

The step that matters

Browning the flour mixture in the oven. Flour must brown thoroughly without burning. Browned flour gives colour and a nutty, toasted flavour, while burnt flour turns bitter and can spoil the whole soup.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, clove, 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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