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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup with ham, butter, and sago, simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onion.

Make the soup

  1. Fry them with the ham in the butter for 20 minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Add the puree to the stock, sago, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  4. Bring to a boil and simmer until the sago is clear.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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, flavour and colour of the soup once cooked and pureed.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens during frying.
Butter
Carries the frying and adds richness and mouthfeel to the soup.
Sago
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and turns clear when simmered.

The step that matters

Simmer until the sago is clear. Sago starch only thickens fully once its granules swell and gelatinise during simmering. Stopping early leaves the soup thin and the sago grainy, so it should be cooked until the grains look translucent.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, ham, 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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