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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with peeled tomatoes, onion, butter, flour, and water, served with toasted or fried bread.

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

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine the tomatoes, salt, pepper, cold water, and the whole onion in a stew-pan.

  2. Stir frequently until the soup boils, then cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Beat the butter and flour together in a bowl until light and smooth, then stir into the soup.

  4. Cook for an additional 10 minutes, then remove the onion.

  5. For a smooth soup, strain through a fine sieve.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with toasted or fried bread, or add small pieces of stale bread to the bottom of the soup tureen.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, rounding out the tomato's acidity.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smoother body.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth as it simmers in the broth.
Sugar
Softens the tomato's sharpness with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour. If butter and flour are added directly to hot liquid they clump. Beating them together first makes a smooth paste that blends evenly into the soup and thickens it without lumps.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, onion, flour, sugar. 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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