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Tomato Soup

A savory soup made with onions, tomatoes, carrots, celery seed, and soup stock, served with toasted bread dice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until brown.

  2. Add the tomatoes and heat them through.

  3. Combine the tomatoes, their juices, and the onions in a stew-pan.

  4. Add celery seed and chopped carrot, then stew gently for 1 hour.

  5. Pour in the soup stock and stew for another 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Pulp the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Season with salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Serve with toasted bread cut into dice.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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

Onions
Browning in butter builds savory, sweet flavor as the onions caramelize.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity, and bright flavor of the soup.
Soup stock
Adds liquid and savory depth, thinning the soup as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body as it softens during stewing.
Butter
Carries fat for frying the onions and adds rich flavor.

The step that matters

Pulp the mixture through a sieve. Long stewing softens the tomatoes and carrot fully, so pressing them through a sieve breaks down remaining solids and gives the soup a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy and uneven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, celery, carrot, 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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