Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Soup

A broth made from soup meat, onion, tomatoes, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Tomato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and tomato 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 broth

  1. Place the soup meat in a pot with cold water.

  2. Simmer for several hours to draw out the meat juices.

  3. After the first hour, add onion, salt, and pepper.

Finish the soup

  1. When the meat is tender, add the canned tomatoes and sugar.

  2. Strain the soup.

  3. Allow the soup to cool.

  4. Skim off the fat.

  5. Heat the soup.

  6. 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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + tomatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,438 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soup meat with bone
Releases juices and flavor into the water as it simmers, forming the base of the broth.
Canned tomatoes
Provide the main tomato flavor, acidity and body to the soup.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic depth to the broth during the long simmer.
Sugar
Balances the tomatoes' acidity with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat. Fat from the simmered meat and bones rises and cools into a layer on the surface. Removing it after cooling makes the soup lighter and cleaner-tasting before reheating.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, tomato, 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.

More tomato soup recipes

Cream 27Clear 14Creamed 10Creamy 8French 8with Rice 8 See all 632 →

You might also like

Tomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes