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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup with butter, bread, egg yolk, and milk, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Sauté chopped shallots or one white onion until soft.

  3. Skin the tomatoes and slice them.

  4. Cut the bread into dice.

  5. Bring the water or broth to a boil in a separate pot.

Make the soup

  1. Add the sliced tomatoes to the butter and stew until dissolved.

  2. Add the diced bread to the boiling liquid.

  3. Combine the tomato mixture with the broth and bread.

  4. Let the mixture simmer.

  5. Strain the mixture, pressing to extract all the liquid.

  6. Return the strained soup to the pot.

  7. Season the soup with salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolk and mix with milk.

  2. Stir the egg yolk mixture into the soup.

  3. Heat the soup until nearly boiling.

  4. 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Break down into the soup's main body, giving flavor, color, and most of its substance.
Butter
Carries the tomato flavor and adds richness as the tomatoes stew.
Bread
Thickens the soup as it softens and breaks down, adding body.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup for a smoother, creamier texture when heated gently.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's tartness with dairy richness.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk mixture into the soup. Egg yolk thickens by setting with gentle heat. If the soup is too hot or boils after adding it, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy, so heat only until nearly boiling.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, egg, milk. 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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