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Tomato Soup

A simple tomato soup made with tomatoes, onion, water, sugar, pepper berries, salt, bay leaf, butter, clove, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine tomatoes, onion, water, sugar, pepper berries, salt, bay leaf, butter, and clove in a pot.

  2. Cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Finish the sauce

  1. Return the strained liquid to the pot, add flour, and stir to finish as a white sauce.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens in the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid so it becomes a smoother, creamier sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the strained liquid. Flour must be stirred in while the liquid is hot and well mixed, so its starch disperses evenly and thickens without forming lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Okrabetter flavor fit
  3. Eggplantbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, pepper, butter, clove, flour. 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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