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Tomato Soup No. 2

A tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, onion, water, butter, corn starch, baking soda, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine tomatoes, bay leaf, parsley, onion, and water in a pot and bring to a boil for a few minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander.

  3. In a bowl, rub together corn starch and butter until smooth, then stir into the boiling soup.

  4. Add baking soda, salt, pepper, and sugar.

Serve

  1. 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.

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.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and smooths the texture of the soup.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavor, and acidity of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato acidity, mellowing the flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring in the corn starch mixture. Corn starch must be fully blended into the butter and then added to boiling liquid so it disperses evenly; added as lumps, it clumps and thickens unevenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, corn, sugar, parsley, 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.

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