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Tomato Soup

A soup made from tomatoes, rice, milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the tomatoes until tender, then rub them through a sieve.

  2. In the meantime, boil the rice until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Bring the milk to a boil in a separate pot.

  2. Add the butter to the boiling milk, then stir in the tomatoes and rice.

  3. Do not let the mixture boil after adding the tomatoes and rice to prevent curdling.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 flavor of the soup.
Rice
Thickens the soup and adds body as it softens and releases starch.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness that softens the tomato's acidity.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture from boiling after adding the tomatoes and rice. Acid from the tomatoes combined with high heat can make milk proteins clump and curdle, so the soup should be kept hot but below a boil.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, 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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