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Tomato Stock Soup

A tomato soup made with stock, canned tomatoes, ham, green pepper, sugar, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Stock Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the ham and green pepper in butter for 5 minutes, browning very lightly.

  2. Add the stock, tomatoes, and sugar.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the soup and serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity, and tomato flavor of the soup.
Flavored soup stock
Forms the liquid base and carries savory flavor through the soup.
Lean raw ham
Adds savory, meaty flavor, deepened by light browning in the butter.
Sweet green pepper
Adds mild sweetness and fresh vegetable aroma.
Butter
Carries flavor and helps the ham and pepper brown lightly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tomatoes' acidity.

The step that matters

Browning the ham and green pepper lightly. Gentle browning in butter builds savory flavor through the Maillard reaction. Browning too far turns the butter and vegetables bitter, which carries into the whole soup.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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