Name: Tomato Stock Soup
Ingredients: 3 cups flavored soup stock; 2 cups canned tomatoes; 1 tablespoon sugar; 2 tablespoons sweet green pepper, chopped; 2 tablespoons lean raw ham, chopped; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon salt

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

Cook the ham and green pepper in butter for 5 minutes, browning very lightly.
Add the stock, tomatoes, and sugar; simmer for 30 minutes.
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.

Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 flavour of the soup.
Butter: Carries the ham and green pepper and helps them brown lightly for flavour.
Lean raw ham: Adds savoury, meaty flavour that is released and browned in the butter.
Sweet green pepper: Adds fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavour when softened in the butter.
Sugar: Balances the acidity of the tomatoes for a rounder flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the ham and green pepper lightly. Browning too hard can make the butter taste bitter and scorch the solids, while under-browning leaves the soup flat. Keep the heat moderate and watch closely for the light colour the step calls for.

Swap the tomato

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

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Potatofits better
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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Tomato Stock Soup