Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Soup

A vegetable and ham soup made with turnips, carrots, onions, celery, ham, tomatoes, stock, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 large pot, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the turnips, carrots, onions, celery, and ham. Cook slowly for about 1 hour.

  3. Stir in the diluted stock and chopped tomatoes. Simmer for 1.5 hours.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve back into the pot.

  5. Add pepper and salt, then boil for 10 minutes.

  6. 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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + tomatotop 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 flavour and body of the soup as they break down during simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour from the vegetables and ham.
Onions
Build a sweet, savoury base as they soften slowly in the butter.
Stock or broth
Supplies liquid and savoury depth for the soup.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth as it cooks slowly with the vegetables.
Turnips
Contribute body and mild sweetness as they cook down.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a sieve. Pushing the cooked solids through a sieve breaks them down and removes fibrous bits, which gives the soup a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup coarse.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, celery, ham, butter, tomato, 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.

More tomato soup recipes

Cream 27Clear 14Creamed 10Creamy 8French 8with Rice 8 See all 632 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes