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Tomato Soup

A soup made from onions, tomatoes, pepper, salt, milk, and rolled crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

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 ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Cut and brown the onions in a hot, buttered pan.

  2. Add the tomatoes and cook well.

  3. Season with pepper and salt, then strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Have the hot milk ready and add the strained tomatoes to it.

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

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Browning them in butter adds sweetness and a deeper, savoury flavour to the soup.
Tomatoes
Form the main body and acidic, fresh flavour of the soup once cooked and strained.
Hot milk
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the acidity of the tomatoes.
Rolled crackers
Thicken the soup slightly and add a toasty, starchy texture when stirred in.

The step that matters

Add the strained tomatoes to the hot milk. Tomatoes are acidic, and cold or overly hot milk combined with acid can curdle or separate. Having the milk hot but not boiling and adding the tomatoes gradually helps keep the soup smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, milk. 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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