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Tomato Bouillon

A reduced tomato broth made with tomatoes, onion, bouillon, salt, and sugar.

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine tomatoes, onion, bouillon, salt, and sugar in a pot.

  2. Boil until the mixture is reduced by half.

  3. Strain the mixture and season 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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Onion + sugartop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Onion and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,747 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, colour, and acidity of the broth.
Bouillon
Supplies the liquid base and savoury flavour that the reduction concentrates.
Onion
Adds aromatic savoury depth as its flavour blends into the liquid.
Sugar
Balances the tomatoes' acidity with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced by half. Boiling evaporates water, concentrating flavour and thickening the liquid. Stopping at half the volume keeps the balance right, since over-reduction makes the broth too intense and salty and can scorch it on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar. 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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