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Tomato Soup

A simple tomato soup made with stewed or canned tomatoes, stock, onion, celery, parsley, and seasoned with salt, pepper, sugar, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine the tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, parsley, and celery in a saucepan.

  2. Stew the mixture for about 10 minutes.

  3. Press the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the seeds.

  4. Transfer the strained mixture to a clean saucepan and add the stock.

  5. Bring the soup to a boil.

Thicken and season

  1. Rub the butter and flour together in a small bowl until smooth.

  2. Stir the butter‑flour mixture into the boiling soup.

  3. Stir constantly until the soup is smooth.

  4. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and baking soda.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, flavour and colour of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it body.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base that carries the soup's flavour.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter‑flour mixture into the boiling soup. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unevenly. Rubbing it smooth with butter first and stirring constantly into the boiling soup disperses the starch so the soup thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, parsley, sugar, butter, flour, 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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