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Cream of Tomato Soup

A creamy tomato soup made with tomatoes, mace, onion, celery salt, parsley, sugar, baking soda, paprika, salt, milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Cream of 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 6,810 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine tomatoes, mace, onion, celery salt, and parsley in a saucepan and cook for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove seeds.

  3. Add sugar, baking soda, paprika, and salt to the strained mixture.

Make the cream base

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Melt butter in a separate pan.

  3. Stir in flour to create a roux.

  4. Mix the roux into the hot milk.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the tomato mixture with the milk mixture 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the soup its smooth body.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour in the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk through the roux so the soup becomes smooth and creamy.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, reducing sharpness and preventing curdling.

The step that matters

Combine the tomato mixture with the milk mixture just before serving. Tomato acid can cause hot milk to curdle or separate. Combining at the last moment and keeping the soup hot, not boiling, helps keep it smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  3. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, celery, parsley, sugar, milk, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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