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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, stock, butter, cornstarch, sugar, baking soda, onion, bay leaf, parsley, and served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine tomatoes, bay leaf, parsley, onion, and stock or water in a saucepan.

  2. Stew the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Press the mixture through a fine sieve to remove seeds.

  4. Wash the saucepan and return the tomato mixture to it.

  5. Bring the soup to a boil.

Thicken and season

  1. Rub together the butter and cornstarch in a small bowl.

  2. Stir the mixture into the boiling soup until smooth.

  3. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and baking soda to the soup.

Prepare and serve with toast

  1. Butter the slices of bread.

  2. Cut the bread into tiny squares.

  3. Toast the squares in the oven until golden brown.

  4. Add the toasted bread to the soup just before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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 and flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup so it turns smooth and creamy when boiled.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomatoes' acidity, softening the sharp tang.
Bread
Adds texture and absorbs liquid when toasted and added to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch mixture into the boiling soup. Cornstarch clumps if added dry or to cold liquid. Rubbing it with butter first and stirring it into boiling soup lets the starch disperse and gelatinize evenly, giving a smooth, thickened result.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, sugar, parsley, pepper, bread. 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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