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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made by simmering tomatoes, sieving, adding stock, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato puree

  1. Cut the tomatoes in half and place them in a saucepan over low heat without water.

  2. Simmer until the tomatoes are tender.

  3. Rub the tomatoes through a sieve to remove the skins.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the stock in a separate pot and stir it into the tomato puree until smooth.

  2. Add the lemon juice and cayenne pepper to the soup.

  3. Serve with toasted bread or garnish with egg balls or meat balls if desired.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,013 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Red tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavor and pulp of the soup once cooked and sieved.
Stock
Adds liquid and savory depth, thinning the tomato puree to a soup consistency.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the tomatoes.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Cherryabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Avocadoabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Limeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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