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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, water, sugar, salt, cloves, black pepper, butter, onion, and thickened with corn starch.

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

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine tomatoes, hot water, sugar, salt, cloves, and black peppers in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

Make the thickener

  1. Melt butter over medium heat in a frying pan.

  2. Add chopped onion and fry for 5 minutes, being careful not to burn.

  3. Stir in corn starch until well mixed.

  4. Add the mixture to the tomato mixture.

  5. Cook slowly for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup.

  2. 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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 + corntop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Corn starch
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour from the onion into the soup.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth when fried gently in butter.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch mixture to the tomatoes. Corn starch must be fully stirred in and cooked slowly so it thickens evenly; if added unmixed or cooked too fast, it can clump and leave a starchy, lumpy texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, clove, pepper, butter, corn. 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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