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Government House Tomato Soup

A tomato soup simmered with celery, onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, milk, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,189 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Government House Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Strain the tomatoes and put them in a pot to simmer with all ingredients for one hour.

  2. Strain the mixture again and return it to the pot, bringing it to a boil.

  3. Add the baking soda and, when it stops foaming, stir in the cold milk.

Serve

  1. In a soup tureen, place a cupful of stiff whipped cream and gently pour the soup in the center.

  2. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Celery + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,009 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 acidic flavor of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes acidity in the tomatoes and makes the soup less sharp, while causing foaming.
Cold milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the tomato flavor when stirred into the hot soup.
Stiff whipped cream
Adds richness and a cool, airy contrast when the hot soup is poured over it.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the cold milk after the baking soda foam settles. Adding milk to a boiling, acidic soup can curdle it. Waiting until the foaming stops and stirring in cold milk helps keep the soup smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, clove, sugar, cinnamon, milk, cream):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, clove, sugar, cinnamon, milk, cream. 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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