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Tomato Soup

A thick tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, spices, stock, and thickened with flour and clarified drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. In a large pot, combine the canned tomatoes, water, bay leaves, allspice berries, cloves, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil and then boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

  3. Add the stock, sugar, salt, white pepper, and baking soda to the strained liquid while heating.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate pot, mix the flour with 2 ½ quarts of water and heat to boiling.

  2. Stir in the clarified drippings and then add this mixture to the hot soup.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Allspice + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 flavor of the soup.
Stock
Adds savory depth and most of the liquid volume.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and cooks in boiling liquid.
Clarified drippings
Add fat for richer flavor and a smoother mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato's acidity, mellowing the flavor.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour slurry. Flour must be stirred smoothly into water and brought to a boil. Heat swells the starch to thicken the soup and cooks off raw flour taste. Constant stirring prevents lumps, which form when dry flour clumps before it hydrates.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, allspice, clove, sugar, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, allspice, clove, sugar, flour. 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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