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Tomato Soup

A simple tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, water or stock, sugar, salt, butter, corn starch, cloves, pepper, onion, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the canned tomatoes and hot water or stock in a pot.

  2. Add sugar, salt, butter, corn starch, cloves, pepper, chopped onion, and parsley.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted crackers or croutons.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Canned tomatoes
Form the soup's base and provide its main tomato flavour and body.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup body.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat, which carries flavour and gives a smoother mouthfeel.
Chopped onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the soup base.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch. Corn starch must be heated in liquid to thicken. Stirring it in well before simmering prevents lumps, and it needs to come to a simmer so the starch granules swell and thicken the soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

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