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Tomato Soup

A soup made from tomatoes, stock, flour, onion, pepper, salt, and wheat bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the tomatoes in the stock until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Rub the cooked tomatoes through a sieve and add to the stock.

  3. Thicken the soup with a little flour and season with onion, pepper, and salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Fry the small squares of wheat bread in a little butter or lard.

  2. Drop the fried bread into the soup just before serving.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Tomato + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

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

  5. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 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

Tomatoes
Cooked and sieved to give the soup its body and main flavour.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the tomato flavour.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it has a smoother, heavier body.
Wheat bread
Frying the cubes gives crisp croutons that stay crunchy in the hot soup.

The step that matters

Drop the fried bread into the soup just before serving. Bread croutons absorb liquid and soften quickly, so adding them at the last moment keeps them crisp and distinct.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, flour, pepper, wheat, bread, butter. 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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