Name: Cream of Tomato Soup
Ingredients: 6 oz. tomatoes, peeled and chopped; 1 oz. peanuts or pine nuts, flaked; ½ oz. parsley, celery, chives, or other savory herbs, minced; ½ oz. olive oil

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 15,539 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

6 oz. tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 oz. peanuts or pine nuts, flaked
½ oz. parsley, celery, chives, or other savory herbs, minced
½ oz. olive oil

Directions

Prepare

Chop the peeled tomatoes with a sharp knife and macerate them with a fork.
Flake the peanuts or pine nuts.
Mince the parsley, celery, chives, or other herbs.

Assemble and serve

Mix the macerated tomatoes, flaked nuts, minced herbs, and olive oil together.
Serve immediately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Peanut + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,027 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + peanuttop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together315 recipes

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

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, moisture, and fresh tomato flavor of the soup.
Peanuts or pine nuts: Add richness and a toasty, nutty flavor with a bit of body.
Olive oil: Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the soup a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Savory herbs: Contribute aroma and a fresh, savory flavor that balances the tomatoes.

Flavor stand-ins for the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, parsley, olive):

Chickpeabetter flavor fit
Beansbetter flavor fit
Black-eyed peabetter flavor fit
Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.