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Tomato Soup Without Stock

A tomato soup made by simmering tomatoes, water, peppercorns, bay leaf, cloves, sugar, salt, baking soda, onion, then thickened with a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup Without Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the first six ingredients for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add salt and baking soda.

Thicken and finish

  1. In the same pan, beat the butter until bubbling.

  2. Add the flour to the butter and rub until mixed and slightly brown.

  3. Add a few spoonfuls of the soup to the butter‑flour mixture and rub smooth.

  4. Pour the smooth mixture slowly into the kettle of soup.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

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

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

  2. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 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

Flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, body-rich texture when cooked with butter.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and base of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato's acidity, mellowing the flavour.
Sugar
Balances the tomato's acidity with sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the butter-flour mixture to the soup. Pour the mixture in slowly after rubbing it smooth with hot soup. Adding it all at once or unsmoothed flour can leave lumps, because flour clumps when it meets hot liquid without first being dispersed.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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