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Soup

Corn and Tomato Soup with Stock

A soup made with beef, tomatoes, corn, and butter simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn and Tomato Soup with Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a granite kettle, combine beef and water and boil gently for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the broth and return it to the fire.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Add tomatoes and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Drain and pass the tomatoes through a fine sieve back into the kettle.

  3. Add corn and butter, then season with salt and pepper.

  4. Boil the soup for 20 minutes and serve with crisp crackers.

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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as it simmers for two hours.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and bright flavor, and when sieved they thicken the soup into a smooth body.
Corn
Adds natural sweetness and soft texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Passing the tomatoes through a fine sieve. Tomato skins and seeds stay behind in the sieve, leaving a smooth soup. Draining first removes excess liquid so the soup does not become thin and watery.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, corn, 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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