Name: Beef Tomato Soup
Ingredients: 1 pint fresh or canned tomatoes, sieved; 2 potatoes, finely chopped; 1 onion, grated; 2 quarts beef stock; coarse sea salt, to taste; red pepper, to taste

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,023 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Sieve the tomatoes to remove seeds, yielding 1 pint of pulp.
In a pot, combine the tomato pulp, chopped potatoes, grated onion, and beef stock.
Season with coarse sea salt and red pepper.
Simmer until the potatoes are tender.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together5,448 recipes

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

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.
Potatoes: Break down during simmering to add body and thicken the soup.
Onion: Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens into the broth.
Beef stock: Forms the liquid base and supplies the savoury beef flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Carrotabout as good a flavor fit
Onionthe original
Okraabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, potato, beef, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.