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Tomato Soup

A savory soup made with tomatoes, ham, vegetables, stock, and finished with cornflour, milk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Melt the butter in a pot and fry the ham and sliced vegetables until softened.

  2. Add the tomatoes, breaking them down, and boil quickly for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the stock, peppercorns, and bay leaf, then simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the soup to remove solids.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the cornflour with the milk, add to the strained soup, and boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Stir in the cream, season with salt, and add coloring if necessary.

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. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tinned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and tomato flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness while softening the vegetables and ham.
Cornflour
Thickens the strained soup into a smooth, body-rich texture when boiled.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel at the end.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base and savoury depth for simmering the soup.

The step that matters

Boil the cornflour mixture for 10 minutes. Cornflour only thickens fully when it boils, and it must be mixed smoothly with cold milk first so it does not clump. Boiling long enough cooks out the raw starch taste and sets the texture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, onion, carrot, celery, milk, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, onion, carrot, celery, milk, cream. 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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