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Tomato Soup Without Stock

A tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, onion, butter, and rice, without stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup Without Stock

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the sliced onion in butter until soft.

  2. Add the canned tomatoes and parsley, and cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve to remove solids.

  4. In a saucepan, melt 1 teaspoon of butter until bubbling.

  5. Stir in 1 teaspoon of flour until smooth, then add the tomato pulp.

  6. Season with pepper and salt, then add ½ pint of boiling water.

  7. Stir in 1 cup of cooked rice and dissolve ½ teaspoon of baking soda in a little boiling water before adding.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and sweetness that give the soup its flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when frying the onion and thickening the base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and tomato mixture into a smoother, more body-rich soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato's acidity, mellowing the taste and altering the colour.
Cooked rice
Adds body and a soft, thickened texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda before adding it. Baking soda reacts vigorously with acid and can foam up. Dissolving it in a little boiling water and adding it slowly to the hot tomato base spreads the reaction out and avoids overflow or a bitter, soapy taste from clumps.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, tomato, flour, pepper, rice):

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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