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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made by stewing tomatoes, adding broth, bread, onions, herbs, salt, and pepper.

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

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Stew the tomatoes slowly in 1 pint of water for 1.5 hours.

  2. Pass the tomatoes through a fine sieve.

  3. Add 2 quarts of veal or mutton broth.

Thicken and finish

  1. Pass enough stale bread through a sieve to thicken the soup.

  2. Fry the onions until brown, then strain them.

  3. Add the strained onions and a bunch of fine herbs to the soup.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, boil well, and 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. 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. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

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 and flavour of the soup once stewed and sieved.
Veal or mutton broth
Supplies the liquid base and savoury richness of the soup.
Stale bread
Thickens the soup as it is passed through, giving it body.
Onions
Fried until brown, they add a deeper, caramelised savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until brown. Onions that are under-browned taste raw and harsh, while over-browned ones turn bitter. Browning them gently develops sweetness through caramelisation, which then carries into the soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, veal, bread, 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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