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French Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with rice, onions, butter, sugar, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

French Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. In a pot, combine the rice, water, and sliced onion.

  3. Bring to a boil and cook for about one hour.

  4. Add the tomatoes, butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  5. Simmer for an additional 20 minutes, then blend until smooth.

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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Rice
Breaks down during long simmering, releasing starch that gives the soup body.
Tomatoes
Supply the main flavor and the bright acidity of the soup.
Onion
Cooks down into a sweet, aromatic base for the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, smoother mouthfeel.
Castor sugar
Balances the tomatoes' acidity with gentle sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the rice until fully tender before blending. Rice that is still firm will not break down when blended, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, thickened soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, tomato, butter, sugar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, tomato, butter, sugar, pepper. 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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