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Soup

Tomato Sotip

A tomato soup made with stock, butter, bacon, onion, carrot, herbs, celery, and tapioca.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 Sotip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes.

  2. Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry it in the butter with the chopped onion, carrot, herbs, and celery.

Make the soup

  1. Add the tomatoes and stock, and cook gently for one hour.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and return it to the saucepan.

  3. Bring to a boil, then stir in the tapioca and cook until clear.

Serve

  1. Season to taste and serve.

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.

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. Carrot + celerytop 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. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and flavour of the soup, breaking down into a smooth pulp when cooked.
Butter
Carries flavour from the aromatics and adds richness to the soup.
Bacon
Adds savoury, smoky flavour as it fries in the butter.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup as its starch swells during cooking, turning it clear and slightly glossy.

The step that matters

Stirring in the tapioca. Tapioca must be cooked until it turns clear, because its starch only thickens fully once it has been heated long enough. Stopping early leaves the soup thin or cloudy-textured.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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