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Tomato Soup

A hearty tomato soup with lean ham, vegetables, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Stew the turnips, carrots, onions, and celery with the ham and butter over low heat, then continue stewing for about 1 hour.

  2. Add the diluted stock and chopped tomatoes, and stew for another 1.5 hours.

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

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Bring to a boil before serving 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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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, softening as they stew.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, meaty depth to the stock base.
Butter
Adds richness and helps soften the vegetables gently without browning.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and body as they break down during stewing.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the soup as they soften.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked solids through a sieve breaks them down fully, giving the soup a smooth texture instead of a chunky one.

Flavor stand-ins for the turnip

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

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Leekabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Turnipthe original

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