Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Soup

A simple tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, water or stock, oil, flour, and salt, optionally garnished with cucumbers and celery.

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

Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Strain the canned tomatoes and heat them.

  2. Add an equal amount of boiling water or soup stock.

Make the roux

  1. Heat the oil, butter, or fat in a pot.

  2. Stir in the flour and boil for a few seconds.

Finish and serve

  1. Gradually add the tomato juice and salt.

  2. Boil for 3 to 5 minutes until it reaches gravy consistency.

  3. Serve hot, adding raw cucumbers and celery if desired.

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 + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cucumbertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provide the main flavor and the liquid base of the soup.
Oil, butter, or fat
Coats the flour so it blends smoothly and carries flavor into the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup to a gravy-like consistency as it cooks.
Boiling water or soup stock
Adds liquid to thin the tomatoes and extend the soup.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and boil for a few seconds. Flour added to hot fat must be stirred constantly so it cooks evenly without lumps. Brief boiling after adding liquid lets the starch swell fully and thicken the soup.

Swap the cucumber

The recipe marks cucumber as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, flour, celery):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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

More tomato soup recipes

Cream 27Clear 14Creamed 10Creamy 8French 8with Rice 8 See all 632 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesTomato FrittersTomato Fritters23 recipes