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Tomato Soup

A hearty soup made with ham, vegetables, tomatoes, and stock, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, stew the turnips, carrots, onions, and celery with the ham and butter over low heat for about 1 hour.

  2. Add the diluted stock and chopped tomatoes, then stew for another 1.5 hours.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve back into the pot.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body as they soften during the long stew.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and thicken the soup as they break down.
Onion
Builds savoury depth as it softens slowly over low heat.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, meaty flavour to the stock base.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness to the vegetables as they cook.

The step that matters

Stewing the vegetables over low heat. Cooking gently for about an hour softens the vegetables and draws out their sweetness without browning or scorching them. Rushing this step leaves a thin, raw-tasting base.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, turnip, carrot, onion, celery, meat):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, turnip, carrot, onion, celery, meat. 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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