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Tomato Soup

A soup made from stewed tomatoes, onion, butter, milk, flour, baking soda, salt, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Stew the tomatoes with the sliced onion until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a coarse sieve and return it to the kettle.

  3. Bring the tomato mixture to a boil.

Make the milk mixture

  1. Scald the milk in a separate pot, then add the butter and flour, stirring until smooth.

Combine and serve

  1. When ready to serve, add the baking soda to the tomato mixture.

  2. Pour the heated milk mixture into the tomatoes and serve immediately.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the acidity of the tomatoes.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the soup becomes smooth and body-rich.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, reducing sharpness and altering the colour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and smooths the texture.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts with tomato acid and releases gas, so it foams and can curdle the milk if added too early or too much. Adding it just before serving, as the record directs, limits this.

Swap the onion

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

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

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