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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made by boiling tomatoes with water, onion, bay leaf, celery seed, then thickened with butter and flour, served with buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the tomatoes, water, onion, bay leaf, and celery seed for 10 minutes.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub together the butter and flour until well combined.

  3. Add the butter-flour mixture to the soup and stir until boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and red pepper to taste.

  2. Strain the soup, reheat, and serve with squares of buttered toast.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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, flavour and acidity of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and smoothing the texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a fuller body.

The step that matters

Adding the butter-flour mixture to the soup. Flour dropped in as a dry lump or added to hot liquid without being rubbed smooth with butter can clump. Stirring until the soup boils lets the starch hydrate and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, 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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