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Parker House Soup

A tomato-based soup with butter, onion, spices, and flour thickener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Parker House Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan until it bubbles.

  2. Add the chopped onion and fry until light brown.

  3. Stir in the can of tomatoes, salt, red pepper, cloves, and sugar.

  4. Cook well, then strain the mixture into a rich stock.

  5. Thicken the stock with flour dissolved in a little cold water.

  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.

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.

  1. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Butter
Adds richness and fat to the base, and carries flavour from the onion.
Onion
Browning the onion builds a deeper, sweeter savoury flavour in the base.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and colour of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock to give the soup a smoother, heavier body.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Thicken the stock with flour dissolved in cold water. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps; dissolving it first in cold water lets the starch disperse evenly so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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