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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made by boiling tomatoes and onion, then adding salt, pepper, sugar, butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the soup

  1. Boil the tomatoes and onion in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add salt, pepper, sugar, butter, and flour; mix until smooth like thin cream.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

Add the milk

  1. Boil the milk separately.

  2. When both are boiling, pour the milk into the tomatoes to prevent curdling.

Serve

  1. Serve with squares of toasted bread.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body and tangy flavour of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it becomes smooth and creamy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the acidity of the tomatoes.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes for a rounder flavour.

The step that matters

Pouring the milk into the tomatoes. Milk proteins can curdle when they meet acid, and tomatoes are acidic. Adding the milk only once both are boiling, and pouring it into the tomatoes, as the method says, helps keep the soup smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, flour, butter, sugar, pepper, milk. 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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