Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, onion, butter, and beef stock, thickened with cornstarch.

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

Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pot, combine the canned tomatoes and water.

  2. Fry the chopped onion in butter until golden, then add to the pot.

  3. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve, pressing to get all the pulp through while discarding the seeds.

Season and thicken

  1. Return the strained mixture to the pot and add baking soda, salt, pepper, sugar, and beef stock.

  2. Bring to a boil again.

  3. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold water, then add to the soup to thicken.

Serve

  1. 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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma when fried until golden in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the fried onion.
Beef stock
Adds savoury depth and body to the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup when dissolved in cold water and heated.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, mellowing the flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolving the cornstarch. Cornstarch must be mixed into cold water first so it does not clump, then stirred into the hot soup and brought to a simmer so the starch swells and thickens it.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper, sugar, beef. 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.

More tomato soup recipes

Cream 27Clear 14Creamed 10Creamy 8French 8with Rice 8 See all 632 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes