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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made by stewing tomatoes, straining, adding butter, flour, salt, and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 chopped tomatoes in water gently on low heat for about an hour until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve back into the pot.

  3. Bring the strained tomato mixture to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. In a small bowl, mix the butter and flour together, then stir into the boiling mixture along with the salt.

  2. Add the milk or cream, let it boil briefly, then serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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, flavor and acidity of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a fuller body.
Milk or cream
Adds creaminess and softens the sharpness of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the boiling soup. Flour mixed with butter and stirred into hot liquid can clump if not blended well first. Working it smooth in a separate bowl and stirring steadily helps it thicken evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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