Why it works: Tomato and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,606 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the base
Slice the onions and carrot.
Fry them in the butter with the peppercorns and sugar.
Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and mix well.
Make the soup
Cut up the tomatoes and add them to the pot.
Pour the boiling stock over the mixture and stir until it boils.
Simmer slowly for one hour.
Rub the soup through a sieve.
Return it to the saucepan and heat thoroughly.
Serve
Pour into a warm tureen.
Serve with fried bread.
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.
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Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,606 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together8,029 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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 and flavour of the soup once cooked and sieved.
- Butter
- Fat that softens the onions and carrot and carries the aroma of the vegetables.
- Onions
- Build savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the butter.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup as it cooks with the stock.
- Bone stock
- Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the other flavours.
The step that matters
Rub the soup through a sieve. Pushing the cooked vegetables through a sieve breaks them down and removes skins and seeds, giving a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup coarse and lumpy.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, carrot, flour, sugar):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Parsnipbetter flavor fit
- Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, carrot, flour, sugar. 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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