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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, onions, ham, carrot, celery, stock, sugar, lemon juice, and tapioca.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,173 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stew pan, combine butter, ham, sliced onions, carrot, celery, and tomatoes cut into pieces.

  2. Cover the pan and shake the contents over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

  3. Add stock, pepper, and salt, then let simmer for 1.5 hours.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve to remove skins and seeds, then return to the saucepan.

  5. Stir in tapioca and bring to a boil.

  6. Add sugar and lemon juice, then boil for an additional 10 minutes.

  7. Serve hot.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the pan.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it body.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries and blends the flavors during simmering.
Ham
Adds savory, salty depth and meaty aroma to the base.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a fine sieve. Straining removes tomato skins and seeds that would otherwise leave a grainy, rough texture. Pressing the solids through also helps the soup become smooth and well blended.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, ham, sugar, lemon, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Okrabetter flavor fit
  3. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, ham, sugar, lemon, carrot, celery, pepper. 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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