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Tomato Soup

A clear tomato soup made by simmering tomatoes with water, seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, and thickened with cornstarch.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. If using fresh tomatoes, pour boiling water over them to loosen the skins.

  2. After one minute, plunge the tomatoes into cold water and remove the skins.

  3. Slice the tomatoes to measure accurately and combine with an equal amount of water.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook the mixture slowly for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain through a fine sieve to remove seeds and retain the pulp.

Season and finish

  1. Return the strained soup to the heat and season with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Thicken the soup with cornstarch mixed in some of the soup.

  3. Add boiled rice, macaroni, or vermicelli if desired.

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

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

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Fresh tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavor, and pulp of the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup by swelling in heat to give it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with cornstarch mixed in some of the soup. Cornstarch must be mixed into a small amount of soup first so it disperses evenly. Added dry or in lumps, it clumps and leaves a grainy texture. Starch thickens only when heated, so the soup needs to be warmed enough to thicken.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, rice. 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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