Skip to main content
Soup

French Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, onions, beef stock, thickened with corn starch, seasoned with celery salt, and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

French Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Place the tomatoes in an earthen vessel.

  2. Cut the onions and add them to the tomatoes.

  3. Boil for 2 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the mixture into 1 quart of beef stock.

  2. Thicken the soup with corn starch and add celery salt.

  3. Serve with croutons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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
Form the soup's main body, with sweetness and acidity that develop as they cook.
Onions
Add savory aroma and sweetness as they soften in the simmering tomatoes.
Beef stock
Adds savory depth and liquid that carries the tomato flavor.
Corn starch
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated in the liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with corn starch. Corn starch granules clump when added dry. It should be fully dispersed in cold liquid before being stirred in. The starch then swells and thickens only when the soup is heated, so the soup needs to stay hot long enough for the starch to set.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, beef, corn, celery. 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.

You might also like

Cream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque11 recipesIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipes