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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, water, spices, and a butter‑onion‑parsley roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine tomatoes, hot water, cloves, salt, pepper, sugar, red pepper, and baking soda in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 2 hours.

Make the butter mixture

  1. Melt butter in a separate pan and add chopped onion and parsley; cook until pale yellow.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix well.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter mixture to the tomato mixture and simmer for 15 minutes.

  2. Adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper if needed.

  3. Strain the soup and serve hot with toasted 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.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

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

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, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour from the onion and parsley.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it a smoother, more body-filled texture.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour added to hot fat clumps easily if not mixed well; cooking it briefly in the butter and onion coats the particles so they disperse smoothly when the mixture is combined with the soup, preventing lumps and giving an even texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, pepper, sugar, butter, parsley, flour. 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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