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Corn and Tomato Soup with Stock

A hearty soup of beef, tomatoes, corn, and butter simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn and Tomato Soup with Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine beef and water in a granite kettle.

  2. Boil gently for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Return the strained broth to the fire.

Add the vegetables

  1. Add tomatoes.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

  3. Drain the tomatoes.

  4. Pass the tomatoes through a fine sieve back into the kettle.

  5. Add corn, butter, salt, and pepper.

  6. Boil for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with crisp crackers.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Simmered in water to build the savory body of the broth.
Tomatoes
Break down during long boiling, adding acidity, body and a rich base to the soup.
Corn
Adds sweetness and tender texture when briefly simmered in the finished broth.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, smoother mouthfeel in the finished soup.

The step that matters

Pass the tomatoes through a fine sieve. Straining removes tomato skins and seeds, which would otherwise stay tough and gritty. Pressing the pulp through gives a smooth soup texture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, corn, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, corn, butter, pepper. 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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